Posted on 04/17/2006 9:20:40 PM PDT by beaversmom
INDIANAPOLIS -- A woman who allegedly left her baby in an unlocked car Monday was arrested after she returned to the vehicle and drove away, unaware that police had taken the child, authorities said.
Aimee Ward, 29, of Indianapolis, faces a preliminary charge of neglect. Authorities also said she was driving with a suspended license.
Police said Ward left her 5-month-old son in her vehicle in the parking lot of a Kroger store at 4202 S. East St. While Ward was shopping in the store, a Kroger worker saw the baby and talked to police Officer Paul Humphrey, who was there for an unrelated matter, authorities said.
"Nobody (was) around and the baby was very unhappy," Humphrey said. "I removed the baby from the car and placed it in my police vehicle to wait for the parents to return."
Humphrey said he waited nearly 20 minutes before Ward left the store. She put a grocery bag in the car and drove away, police said.
Humphrey said he stopped her about a block away.
Police said Ward left her infant in this car while she shopped.
"I said, 'Are you missing something from your vehicle?' " Humphrey said. "She looked at me as if she had no idea what I was talking about, and we had to tell her that we had her baby."
The baby was put into the custody of child protective services, 6News' Tanya Spencer reported.
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/8779504/detail.html
Unbelievable.
Druggie gone to the store for munchies?
Report says she was "stressed". I don't buy it...
Well, that should teach her to lock her car next time.
/sarcasm
Do police cruisers come with child safety seats these days? How did the officer drive, follow and pull over the, "Mom," with her baby in his vehicle?
Well in this self-centered world... I'm not suprised at all. It's disgusting how a lot of parents have kids as badges of honor as opposed to having children for the joys and Glory of GOD. Having the two kids are just like another status symbol, right next to the big house, the Jag and the SUV. Granted, that isn't quite her circle, she obviously didn't care much for the child.
Wouldn't he have taken the baby out in his infant car seat and belted into his car? That's what I guess anyway..
That would be the only option he'd have had.
The younger the child, the more straps required to remove the seat.
Cop must be pretty limber to have done that while holding the kiddo.
Yes, I know it was incredibly irresponsible of the mother. But people used to do all sorts of irresponsible things without them being illegal or national news. Not only did my father let me go out bicycle riding without a helmet and let me sit in a moving car without a seatbelt but kids used to routinely ride in the back of pick-up trucks and my aunts talk about leaving my mother, during the Depression, out on a city sidewalk in a carriage, alone, while they went inside of a store to shop. Now I agree that all of that was dangerous and parents should know better these days, but what I want to know is why all of this stuff needs to be criminal. If the temperature endangering the baby, it makes sense to arrest her but all it says is that the baby was unhappy. An unhappy baby should not be a crime. And I suspect large numbers of people reading this article were left alone by their parents or had their parents let them do something irresponsible like riding a bike without a helmet or ride in a car without a seatbelt and I doubt they would have been better off if their parents had been arrested. Could the baby have been stolen? Yes. And, guess what? Kids have been kidnapped out of their own bedrooms, too. Is any parent that doesn't put bars on their children's windows irresponsible and, if not, where exactly does the lines fall between responsible, irresponsible, and criminally irresponsible?
Again, I'm not saying that what the woman did wasn't irresponsible. I'm complaining about the criminalization of what was, a mere couple of decades ago, not criminal and, in some cases, routine or average parenting. How did any of us ever survive before all of these laws?
I grew up in the mid-1960s through mid-1980s and I don't remember children wearing helmet on their bicycles, children strapped into car seats, parents being arrested for leaving their children home alone, parents being arrested for leaving their children unattended. I do remember children riding bicycles without helmets, children not only riding in cars without safety seats but also without seatbelts and in the beds of pickup trucks, children being left alone by their parents, and children being left in cars while their parents ran into the store. Were all those parents, probably the parents of many of the people reading this thread, self-centered and irresponsible? Criminal? Did we all die of neglect? I don't dispute that it's good advice for parents to pay better attention to the safety of their kids than parents used to, but why did it also have to become criminal to do things that were, just a few decades ago, not only legal but normal?
And you don't even want to know about how parents treated their children during the Depression. How does the idea of sending 9 year-olds out into a city alone to work to support their family grab you? Self-centered? Criminal?
I've told this story before, but my older brothers were born in England in the 50's. It was routine to leave children in their carriages outside of stores or other places of business. My mom told me she did this often and once went to the dentist and left my oldest brother outside in his carriage. I'm sure that this is no longer accepted practice though.
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/8779504/detail.html
Unbelievable that she did not even notice he was gone!
Haven't been around small children lately, have you? Undo the hook and pop off the seatbelt, and pull the seat out with the child still in it. Fishing for the hook is a pain, but you are talking about a couple of minutes if you know what you are doing. Hooking them back is the hard part.
Of course, we are both assuming that the mother bothered to properly hook in the seat - a rash assumption in the case of this mother. More likely, she just used the seatbelt. That's about a 15 second removal job.
Try "on meth" on for size?
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