Is It Okay to Leave Kids Unattended in Car?

A 39-year-old Cross River woman is facing criminal charges for leaving her two young children in her car while she shopped, Yorktown police said. 

Recently someone called Tarrytown Police on a father who left one sleeping child in the car unattended briefly in the YMCA parking lot, while he went in to pick up another child. The father explained to police the brevity of his absence and how he hadn't wanted to wake the sleeping child; police did not charge him.

Allowing children to wait in the car, walk to the store, play in a park or sit on the stoop alone is a very controversial community issue. People are arrested for it all the time—and the backlash is strong all the time, too.

The Website Free Range Kids has an entire section on it. Here's a quote from the top of the page devoted to waiting in cars:

Ah, readers, you know this is my bugaboo: the idea that the authorities (cops, CPS) know better than PARENTS whether or not a child is safe waiting for a short while in the car. I always want to ask the busybodies who summon the police, “Do you really think it’s safer to drag a toddler across a crowded parking lot, where they could get run over, or into a STORE where there could be a ROBBERY in progress and the child could get SHOT?” I  mean, if we’re going to do some wild “worst-first” thinking about kids in the car, let’s do some worst-first thinking OUTSIDE the car, too.
quote context: 

In the Yorktown incident, police began the investigation on March 30 when they received a report that two children were left unattended in a vehicle at the Staples Plaza. 

Police said the woman had left her 1-year-old and 8-year-old children in the vehicle while she was shopping in one of the stores. She was arrested, charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor and later released, and is scheduled for a May court appearance. 

What do you think? Tell us in the comments.