A mother left her five-year-old son inside a parked Mercedes with the windows rolled up as she shopped at a Walmart on a sweltering South Florida afternoon, police said.
The boy, who frantically knocked on the car window to get the attention of passersby, was eventually freed by Walmart employees, the police report said.
Martine Louis-Jacques, 62, was accused of child neglect without great bodily harm and appeared before a judge on Tuesday, NBC 6 South Florida reported.
Police said the boy, who was not identified, was ‘scared and distraught’ after being left in the vehicle for around 20 minutes while his mother shopped inside the store in Pembroke Pines.
‘The Walmart employees observed the child [redacted] unsupervised inside of the vehicle, which was completely shut off with all the windows up,’ it read.
Martine Louis-Jacques, 62, of Miramar, was arrested on Monday after leaving her son in her hot Mercedes while she shopped in Walmart for 20 minutes
A passerby in the parking lot alerted a Walmart employee to the situation, and store workers eventually freed the boy by instructing him to unlock the car from the inside.
After employees brought the boy inside the store, he ran to his mother, police said. The two left the location without speaking to employees and before the arrival of law enforcement.
The Miramar resident was arrested at her home after police used CCTV to identify her car and locate her address.
The child was freed from the car after he got the attention of a passerby
She was taken to the Broward Sheriff’s Office’s main jail and her bond was set at$3,500.
Around 40 children die from heatstroke from being trapped in hot cars, according to Kids and Car Safety, an advocacy group.
More than 1,000 kids have died in these incidents over than last three decades.
