If the day is warm whatsoever and a baby is in a locked car, it becomes a medical emergency and I start breaking windows and calling the Fire Dept., not the police. I can make a pretty good case for a possible medical emergency and the need for an evaluation. If it is a 'hot' day then perhaps, a warm day...not so much. The parent might just return from picking up there paycheck because of your swift action and turn you in for attempted kidnapping. What is so wrong with gathering more information and finding the parent?
First, it's a baby in a locked car on a warm day. In my world, that is wrong and is a potential harm to the child. Let's not even get into the possibility of the baby being taken. It the kid is alive and kicking, then I would simply wait a reasonable amount of time ( as you suggest ) for the parent to return, with "reasonable" being subjective.
Kidnapping wouldn't stick. As I stated, I could make a very convincing case for a medical emergency, and the legal justification would be "implied consent" in the case of a medical emergency. WA also has a very solid Good Samaritan law: RCW 4.24.300
Coming out to find your car windows broken, and multiple fire apparatus surrounding it, will likely cause the parent/parents to think about it the next time they do that. You would damage someone's personal property based your assumption that there is a medical emergency. If you did that to me, I would sue you.
Respectfully Nick, no, ultimately you wouldn't. You use the term "your assumption". I can guarantee you that I could sit in a deposition or a court and give solid evidence that I had reasonable grounds to suspect a medical emergency existed.
As to a lawsuit for damages, once again, 4.24.300 states:
RCW 4.24.300 - Immunity from liability for certain types of medical care.(1) Any person, including but not limited to a volunteer provider of emergency or medical services, who without compensation or the expectation of compensation renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency or who participates in transporting, not for compensation, therefrom an injured person or persons for emergency medical treatment shall not be liable for civil damages resulting from any act or omission in the rendering of such emergency care or in transporting such persons, other than acts or omissions constituting gross negligence or willful or wanton misconduct. Any person rendering emergency care during the course of regular employment and receiving compensation or expecting to receive compensation for rendering such care is excluded from the protection of this subsection.
Older kids, not so much, as has been stated already. Unless there is an obvious problem. But I would never have thought to call the police.Are you calling the non emergency police number or just simple 911. Most likely 911 where a dispatcher will decide who is sent and more likely than not the first responder will be the police.
If I feel I have to call 911 at all, I don't let the dispatcher decide who to send. I tell them who I need and why.
I see the point you are making about parents just running off leaving their kid in the car and who plan on being back momentarily. There are so many instances of kidnapping and car theft in those instances, not to mention tragedies such as this current thread and others, that I personally think leaving your kid in the car and going where you can't
keep an eye directly on them is negligent, to say the least. But I also agree that the Police have no duty to protect in those instances, and no nanny state laws will change or dissuade people from doing that.
As gun owners, we are ALL dedicated to safety around our kids and grandkids and others children. I would think we all would have strong concerns about the safety ramifications of leaving kids in cars alone as well.