Police in Indianapolis charged a couple with child abuse after they left their two kids locked in their SUV with no air conditioning while they went shopping at Walmart. It was in the mid-90s outside.
Court papers seen by Fox 59 show that Lawrence police think the temperature inside the Ford SUV reached 125 degrees when a person who called 911 around 7 p.m. found the kids in the parking lot.
A news source said that parents Marianne Pierre and Watson Joseph, both 31, were arrested and put into the Marion County jail on two counts of neglect of a dependent. Online records show that both have made a bond since being arrested on Monday.
The news source said that one of the kids was “sweating profusely from the head and neck” when they were found and the other looked confused. The police said that the Department of Child Services would be caring for both of them.
Officers found both parents at their car around the same time and said they were “confused about what was going on,” according to a probable cause document that Law & Crime looked over.
Police say Pierre told them she was in the store for “a little while” and that Joseph came in to help her carry some heavy things. The documents show that she said her SUV ran for five more minutes without the key being closed.
But cops looked at surveillance footage and saw that the couple walked into the store at 6:27 p.m. The affidavit says that the children were left alone for 45 minutes.
Police say that when paramedics checked on the kids at the scene, they were both fine, but their blood pressure was very high for their ages.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) didn’t look into the case, but they did warn parents not to leave their kids alone in cars.
“Even when it’s not hot outside, we never want to leave our kids alone.” “As soon as we turn off that engine, the temperature goes up quickly,” IMPD Sgt. Anthony Patterson said. “It gets really hot really quickly once those doors are shut.” You might think it’s only a few minutes, but to the person or child in the car, that’s a very long time. It quickly becomes very hot.
Source: FOX News
