ORIGINAL: Greybriar
"No Swimming" sign posted. Father close enough to reach the alligator before it swam away with the child. Someone posted that the "No Swimming" sign didn't apply because the water wasn't deep enough to swim in.
Assuming (and we don't know) the parents even saw the sign, everyone makes different risk decisions based on their interpretation of the best information they have at the moment. Does "No Swimming" automatically translate in someone's mind "Don't go into the water because there are dangerous creatures in it that could harm your children"? I don't think so...in many cases "No Swimming" means people don't want you going into their water, usually because they have no supervision or they don't want you to mess up their property. Now don't get me wrong, a rule is a rule and everyone should follow it regardless of the reasoning, but let's face it we all have made decisions like that before.
In this case, let's assume the parents did see the "No Swimming" sign. I am guessing they did not connect walking in shallow water as swimming, they felt they had the right supervision with the father close by, and I am guessing they might not have processed the reason for the "No Swimming" was because of dangerous animals could come out of the water and harm their family....especially since to the best of my knowledge this has never happened at Disney before. So right or wrong, they judged the risk as low based on the best information they had.
Again, if we judge a parent as being good or bad based on always following EVERY rule, I have to imagine all parents would be labled as bad parents for going against a rule at least once in their life. So yes technically the parents should have obeyed the sign regardless (assuming they saw the sign) but in reality we all have made decisions like that in our lives.
At the end of the day, the most important thing is the tragic circumstances of the child losing its life regardless of how it happened...although each side could have done things differently in hindsight, I find it tough to assign blame because of the circumstances.