Poor Woman Dies Through Theft

[jasey]

A Staten Island woman suffocated to death after she climbed inside a clothing drop box to apparently steal the donated clothes inside.

Melissa Mazzeo's head got stuck in the box when the door got stuck on her head. She died with her head outside the box and her body inside.

Motivations for the attempted theft could have stemmed for a 2007 fire that engulfed her home, leaving her family with very few belongings. She leaves behind a 16 year old son.

This is actually really tragic to me. It breaks my heart to hear about a woman who was probably trying to provide for her family (she was gravely poor and taking from a donations bin) and is now gone. While I don't agree that stealing is right, this is kind of a unique situation. I am not sure how to feel. It seems very clear to me that if she was stealing for profit it wouldn't be out of a bin full of people's throwaway clothing on the side of a street. I can't imagine what her son must be going through right now. I grew up pretty poor and if my mother had have died during that I don't know what would have happened. She was such a support to me. It was hard for my family to accept charity or donations because of certain values that my parents carried and perhaps this is the same situation here. I wonder if the woman couldn't bring herself to admit she couldn't afford an outfit for her son and resorted to taking from a freebie box instead of something else.

My question is this: What are your feelings on this situation and on poverty in general?

Edited by Glitzen (Trialist Forum Moderator): Moved to "Current Affairs" as it's better suited here! :)

[xdinosaurdaniel]

This might sound rude but i kinda feel she got what she had coming to her. I do feel sorry for the kids but, there is way better stuff the mother could have been doing then stealing. if she does have kids and obviously she has welfare if she doesnt have a job but she could still go to a foster type home or anything. personally if i was a mother/father and i couldnt provide alot for my kids i would but them up for adoption just so hopefully they would get a better chance at life.

[jasey]

This might sound rude but i kinda feel she got what she had coming to her. I do feel sorry for the kids but, there is way better stuff the mother could have been doing then stealing. if she does have kids and obviously she has welfare if she doesnt have a job but she could still go to a foster type home or anything. personally if i was a mother/father and i couldnt provide alot for my kids i would but them up for adoption just so hopefully they would get a better chance at life.

Oh, gosh. I don't know what to say. I really believe you should read up on the welfare system in America (specifically New York) where this woman was from. There is absolutely no guarantee that she was receiving any money from the government at all. America isn't as generous to the less-fortunate as other western countries are. When you said that she should have just given her son up for adoption, I just can't understand that way of thinking. This isn't a two month old baby but rather a mid-teen who has spent their whole life being raised by this mother. They probably had a bond and to break that because of financial issues would just cause more psychological and emotional problems than it was even worth in the beginning. Bonded families should never have to split up just because of money, in my opinion.

Anyways, like I said in my first post, I do believe stealing is wrong. This seems like a special case to me, though, because she wasn't doing something like walking in to a shop and taking new clothes off of the rack. She was literally so desperate that she climbed in to a freebie donation bin on the side of some parking lot or street likely trying to find a warm sweater or two for her family in the winter. To say that she 'got what she had coming to her' - a painful death - just because she was going through a donation bin seems incredibly insensitive to me. I just think of the thoughts that were going through her head as she suffocated in the box trying to escape. What were her regrets? Was she alone? I can't even talk about this anymore - maybe I am feeling very emotional tonight.