The article doesn’t say what month this happened. Being Chicago, was there a danger that the child would cook to death or freeze?
On Dec. 8 Coyne decided to drive to Wal-Mart in the Chicago suburb of Crestwood so her children and a young friend could donate the coins they’d collected at her husband’s office.
Even as she buckled 2-year-old Phoebe into the car, the girl was asleep. When Coyne arrived at the store, she found a spot to park in a loading zone, right behind someone tying a Christmas tree onto a car.
“It’s sleeting out, it’s not pleasant, I don’t want to disturb her, wake her up,” Coyne said this week. “It was safer to leave her in the safety and warmth of an alarmed car than take her.”
So Coyne switched on the emergency flashers, locked the car, activated the alarm and walked the other children to the bell ringer.
She snapped a few pictures of the girls donating money and headed back to the car. But a community service officer blocked her way.
“She was on a tirade, she was yelling at me,” Coyne said. The officer, Coyne said, didn’t want to hear about how close Coyne was, how she never set foot inside the store and was just there to let the kids donate money, or how she could always see her car.
It was in the winter... Christmas time.... you know the time when people do charitable things like this woman and her children who got out of the car to put money in a Salvation Army kettle.
The mother said that the weather was sleeting and it was safter to leave the 2 year old in the car sleeping, than to wake her, haul her across an icy parking lot to make their charitable donation.
Good deeds never go unpunished.
It was around Christmas time.
I think the child was dressed properly to sustain five minutes in a car.
Better than outside in the cold wouldn't you say?