The human villains in Godzilla King of the Monsters are environmental terrorists who learn the hard way that nature points out the folly of man. Spoilers ahead, so don’t continue unless you have seen the new Godzilla movie.
Dr. Emma Russell made some problematic parenting choices. In the name of saving the Earth from humanity, she decided to have her Monarch team murdered by terrorists, so they could start awakening Titans across the planet. The Titans would lay waste to millions, while magically refreshing the planet with their radiation. Going big for the mom of the year award, she brought her daughter Madison along for murder and terrorism.
As the Russells lived in both California and Massachusetts (or visited San Francisco at the WRONG time), California law will be applied. Any person who “willfully causes or permits that child to be placed in a situation where his or her person or health is endangered” has committed child endangerment. The crime can be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison for two, four, or six years. Cal. Penal Code § 273a(a). Moreover, parents have a duty to exercise reasonable care, supervision, and protection over their minor child. Cal. Penal Code § 272(2). Furthermore, anyone who lives in a way that would cause a minor to have a substantial risk of harm as a result of a parent to adequately supervise or protect a child, can be charged with contributing to the delinquency of minor. Cal. Penal Code § 272(a)(1) and Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 300. As will be explained, Emma failed in all of her duties as a parent.
Emma Russell became a terrorist by supplying information, aid, and support to Allen Jonah’s environmentalist death cult fanatics. Terrorism is defined as actions “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct” and further acts relating to nuclear materials, participation in nuclear and weapons of mass destruction threats to the United States, relating to plastic explosives, relating to arson and bombing of Government property risking or causing death, relating to killing or attempted killing during an attack on a Federal facility with a dangerous weapon, relating to conspiracy to murder, kidnap, or maim persons abroad, and providing material support to terrorist organizations. See, 18 U.S.C.S. § 2332b; 18 USCS § 831; 18 USCS § 832; 18 USCS § 842(m) or (n); 18 USCS § 844(f)(2) or (3); 18 USCS § 930(c); 956(a)(1) [18 USCS § 956(a)(1); and 18 USCS § 2339B.
Emma Russell violated all of these provisions with the conspiracy to kill the Monarch personnel at Outpost 61 awaiting Mortha’s hatching and the slaughter at Outpost 32. Moreover, she literally pulled the trigger to detonate the explosives to free Monster Zero from the ice. Furthermore, the use of the ORCA to send Monster Zero on a path of destruction literally had her fingerprints on the device.
All of Emma’s actions had catastrophic effects in Mexico, Washington, DC, Boston, and over a dozen other locations around the planet. There is no way Emma’s acts of terrorism are defensible. These actions also placed her daughter at risk, from gunfights, to explosive devices detonating, to building-sized radioactive Kaiju creating tropical storms from just flapping their wings, to high speed passes sucking humans into the air at high velocity, to wrath of God type destruction around the world. These actions are unmatched in the law when it comes to child safety. There is no question it would be in the best interest of the child to live with her father in Colorado.
There are many case law examples of child endangerment with firearms, and none involve storming secret bases in Antarctica with frozen monsters. One such case focused on an adult who initiated a game of Russian roulette with minor guests that resulted in a fatality. People v. Hansen, 59 Cal. App. 4th 473, 476 (1997). Another is with a roommate firing a weapon at another roommate who had a child in the home. People v. Navarro, 212 Cal. App. 4th 1336, 1344 (2013). The list goes on like the number of titans.
Emma’s child endangerment went beyond the traditional examples from case law to shattering tons of ice with explosives to fire fights with automatic weapons to atomic monsters. “Child endangerment” is an understatement for Emma’s actions with her daughter present.
There is another important factor to consider: Emma was never redeemed for her actions. While she did leave Allen Jonah to rescue her daughter, it was ONLY to rescue her daughter, NOT to stop the Titan rampage across the planet. While Emma’s final actions helped stopped King Ghidorah, she was motivated by self-interest to save her daughter, not altruism to save the Earth. Madison put it the best when she called her mother a monster, because Emma was one.
