Who Gives A Shit?: Leaving A Baby Alone in The Car

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Yesterday we received the following message from a FIPS reader:

Twice in the last month, I've stumbled upon babies in cars...alone. The first time, I was walking up 2nd street and I saw two teenage boys (maybe 14?) looking into the backseat of a car. As I got closer, they pointed at the window and asked me, "Is this okay?" I peeked in myself and saw a baby sleeping in a car seat. I looked around to see if perhaps the parent had hopped out to quickly pick up an older kid from 321 or something, but there was nobody looking rushed trying to get back to the car. After a few minutes, a woman opened the door to a brownstone ACROSS THE STREET and yelled, "Oh, is he awake?" The second time, I was picking up my kid at Textile Arts Center on Carroll Street. There was a car parked out front with the alarm going off, then stopping, then going off, then stopping. As I passed by, I saw that there was a baby in the car. A very awake baby, who somehow kept setting off the car alarm, while some unseen force kept hitting the remote to make it stop. The car also had one of those "baby on board" signs hanging in the back window.

I'm sure people in the 'burbs do this all the time, with a car in their driveway, but on a busy city street? There was that story two years ago about the dad who was allegedly arrested for leaving his kid in the car while he went shopping at Union Market. If it's not super hot or super cold, and the parent is relatively close by, is this a such big fucking deal?