A toddler who sat in a hot car Monday night was saved by a couple who saw the child suffering inside the sweltering vehicle. The incident that took place in Kansas City, Missouri, got even uglier after the child was rescued.
FOX 4 News reports that a two-year-old girl was spotted sitting in an unlocked car around 7 pm after Jeremy Welch and his family were done eating dinner at Chipotle. He tried looking for a parent, but had no luck.
Welch says:
“We had dinner, we came out, and I noticed as I passed a car parked in a handicapped spot that there was a child in the backseat, she was unattended, the windows were cracked, it was 91 degrees out and she was sweating profusely. Finally my wife said, ‘the little girl can’t stay in there.’ She opened the car and pulled the child out. The woman with the car next door, she got a bottle of water and was giving the little girl some water.”
When the mother of the toddler — Tiquana Pasco — came out of the Game Stop store, she was enraged to see her daughter in the arms of someone else. When she insisted the girl be handed over, Welch’s wife refused. Pasco demanded to know why she had her daughter, and Mrs. Welch told the mom that she left the girl in the car. She told her they should wait for police to show up and that she wasn’t giving the girl to her.
The Welches took the girl inside Chipotle to cool her off. In the process, the toddler’s mother began hitting Jeremy. She managed to tear his shirt as well.
Jeremy Welch recalls:
“She became extremely irate and ran over and grabbed her child and yanked on her. The child then began crying and my wife said, ‘no, I am not giving you your child back. You need to wait for police.’ She continued to shove at me and slap me and push me to try and get around me, and I just stood in her way and told her she couldn’t have her child back until the police got there.”
When a police officer arrived, he noted that the car temperature was 89 degrees. Pasco insisted her daughter be given back to her. She admitted to the officer she left her daughter in the hot car because she was sleeping. The girl reportedly vomited four times. The Welches explained to police that the girl’s shirt was taken off because “it was all wet.”
The child is now with a family member.
The toddler’s mother said she was aware of children dying from being left inside hot cars. She justified leaving the girl in the vehicle because she needed to return a cord and was gone for maybe three or four minutes. After being detained, Pasco said, “I was totally wrong for leaving her in the car.”
According to KHSB 41 , the officer report indicated that Pasco was “belligerent and not following commands [he] gave her.”
Tiquana Pasco remains in police custody a $1,500 cash or surety bond. She faces up to a year in jail if she’s convicted. A misdemeanor charge of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child against her has been filed by Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd.
[Image via KCTV 5 ]
