Child Endangerment

I bet you weren't expecting to hear from when it's so close to my boutique. By the way, I'm expecting you all to attend, even you Matticia. lol.

The other day I ran to Wal-Mart to go to the bank. As I was getting out of my car, I notice a small child (probably a year or 18 months old) strapped in a car screaming in the car next to me. I thought hmmm that's weird and looked for the mother. No mother was in there.... I didn't know what to do so another lady was getting her kids out of her car close by so I mentioned it to her to see what she suggested. She watched the kids while I went inside and got a Wal-Mart employee. When I returned, the Wal-Mart employee went and got management.

While they did that, the other lady called 911. She was adamant that this mother should be caught and not allowed to get away with something that is illegal. I was on the fence. While I understood that leaving your children strapped into your car is illegal, I also felt for the mother who thought this was so innocent. I was also petrified that the mother would come out at any second and we'd have a huge ordeal on our hands. The 911 operator said to call her back immediately if the woman came out and that were to not allow her to leave. How was I going to do that?

Luckily, that didn't happen. The police many showed up. At this point, I would say we'd been standing there 10-15 minutes. I left when the policeman showed up again not wanting a confrontation. I ran into the bank and was literally done in 2 minutes. I was parked right next to her and I knew she would see me. Nothing happened but she was out there yelling at the police. She said something like I was only gone for a second. The policeman pointed out that her cart was half full. She said but it was only a few minutes. He said it only takes 1 minute.

After thinking about this a while, I'm still torn. I realize that it only takes a minute for someone to steal your kids or for something horrible to happen. I also think it was so innocent. She left her 3 kids in the car. The oldest could have been 5 or 6. At what age is the child old enough? The law says 6 I think. Then I read this story today. http://www.insideedition.com/news.aspx?storyID=1607

I don't know the outcome of the lady I turned in but do you really think they took her to jail?? I hope not. My cousin said in Mesa that it is called child abandonment if you leave you kids in the car and they take them away and put you in jail. I understand that because it's hot there and kids die all the time from parents leaving them in the car. It sure made me think and that's a really good thing.