Paul Blankfeld, 36, was arrested in Boynton Beach, Florida, and accused of allegedly punching a father at an Olive Garden because an autistic baby was crying too much and interrupting his “dining experience.” [UPDATE: Blankfeld is the subject of an order last month expunging all record of the arrest and finding that he had not been adjudicated as guilty of any charges in the case.]
The case of restaurant-rage allegedly began with Blankfeld complaining about the noise of children at the nearby table. He was accused of punching the man in the neck. However, according to the recent order, he was never found guilty of such a charge.
Source: KTVL
Well CE,
Whenever you are around just stop on by and I’ll say hi. So speaking of the green guy….what’s going on with the recluse?
Hey recluse? What is up?
AY,
I’ve been lurking and gunshy…..but a good green guy, knowing where my passions lie, suggested I check out this thread. I read the article and the posts and I couldn’t just lurk!!
CE,
Where have you been. I am glad you are back. If you need any help defending yourself against some of the abusive types I will help.
“Seriously – since when is it okay to bring kids that can’t control their emotions and outbursts, be they typical 2 year olds or older kids with mental limitations, to a restaurant? Same goes for movies. If they can’t handle being quiet, LEAVE THEM HOME! If you can’t get a sitter, you get to stay home too.”
-jenbrooke
You’re right, we should all go back to the days where children who are ” different ” are institutioalized and kept from disturbing the lives of all us normal people. Are you kidding me???? Perhaps, before you go about complaining about the inconvinience of a child’s cries you should research what autism is, and the reasons that it is so important for these children to have regular exposure to social situations. Once you’re educated on the topic, then perhaps you can find some empathy for these people and their families.
What’s been missed here is the fact that, for many autistic children, crying is a form of communication because at the moderate to severe level of the spectrum speech is often non-existant. For the record, crying is also a form of communication for babies. For both babies and 1-2% of the autistic poplution cries can communicate pain, discomfort, hunger, fear, confusion etc etc etc.
Olive Garden is a ” Family Restaurant ” which most people understand to include a certain amount of noise. Perhaps this bully should open his pocket book a little wider and eat at a restaurant where children are not likely to frequent. Although in reality it would appear that he’d be much better off to stay home and eat a salad rather than a huge plate of greasy, cheesy pasta.
Tootles,
I am fairly sure I am aware of one of the idiots name and who was the other one?
The article mention that it’s a baby that was crying. To my understanding, I thought it’s pretty normal for all babies to cry in restuarants, cinemas or any public places.
Why was it necessary to say that the baby is autistic? Was the media trying to make it sound like that it’s OK for an autistic babies to cry in public surrounding whereas it’s not ok for normal babies to do so?
Parents should be responsible for their babies, regardless of their handicap. I still think it’s proper that parents should try to do something about their crying babies (take it out, use pacifer, etc) and it’s very rude to do nothing about it.
Please don’t think that I’m saying it’s ok to hit someone because of crying babies. Other people should also behave properly in our civilized society.
Very bad form to punch the dad.
The dad is an idiot to let child disrupt a whole restaurant.
Two idiots.