Joe Kurihara (Allegedly) Knows How to Get Smashed

So a dad leaves a wedding with his three-year-old kid, drunk or about to get drunk (the dad, not the kid). Then the kid ends up spending more than 24 hours missing as a result. This is Howard Blume's story in the Los Angeles Times.

Young Dylan Kurihara was found in his father's car, sleeping and strapped in his car seat, by Pasadena resident Rowdy Metzger, 39.

Metzger joined the search because, "he said he had some kids about the same age and needed to get out and see if he could help," said Pasadena police Cmdr. Darryl Qualls.

Good for Metzger.

Police said the boy was a little thirsty but otherwise in excellent condition and was taken for a checkup to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

That's a good place to go.

The child and the car turned up at 10:40 p.m. Sunday in a parking lot under a commercial building in the 500 block of East Green Street, only two blocks away from where police arrested his father, Joe Kurihara, the night before for public intoxication and resisting arrest. At the time, officers did not know he had his child nearby. Nor did Kurihara mention it.

He later told detectives that he was so drunk that he had no memory of his child being with him.

Father of the year? He had to be drunk as a skunk. At least he strapped the kid in.

Police had searched the area already but missed the car because it was not easily visible from behind a barrier.

Note to criminals: You have a new hiding spot for your contraband. (I kid... being a cop in Pasadena is no easy task.)

Dylan Kurihara was last seen leaving a wedding party with his father, a 23-year-old West Covina resident, Saturday evening.

Witnesses, including the boy's mother, last saw the child with Kurihara at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The parents, described by police as an "on-again, off-again" unmarried couple, had been attending wedding festivities at a Masonic lodge.

Young, unmarried... and highly irresponsible.

When Dylan's mother didn't hear from Kurihara for hours, she began to call police stations and hospitals. She reached Pasadena police about 8 a.m.

So the search for the boy didn’t begin until after that. Three-year-olds have personality and awareness. I can't imagine what the heck that kid was thinking strapped in there without water, without food, without seeing his parents, and without a bathroom break. Thank God the vehicle wasn't left out in the sun on a hot day.

Dogs traced the scent of the boy or his father to the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center, about two miles from the parking garage, officials said. But that turned out to be a blind lead.

Maybe the dogs wanted to go swimming.

Kurihara has two other recent arrests on record, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Baldwin Park police arrested him at 9 p.m. last Thursday for an unspecified misdemeanor charge and released him at 4:39 a.m. The same department had arrested him on another unspecified misdemeanor charge at 7:28 a.m. on Aug. 10, releasing him about three hours later. For each offense the bail amount was set at $1,155.

Go ahead, ladies – make more babies with him.

1. Don't have kids out of wedlock. (Or, if you do, give them up for adoption.)
2. Choose wisely, then marry.
3. Treat your spouse kindly.
4. Be responsible for your children.

How much better would the world be if people followed these rules?