Upper Darby mom charged for leaving tot in hot car
UPPER DARBY >> A township woman faces charges for allegedly leaving her baby in a hot vehicle while she went shopping in the Drexel Hill section of the township Wednesday evening, according to authorities.
Upper Darby police have charged Denae Chavous, 33, of the first block of West Township Line Road, with a misdemeanor count of recklessly endangering another person and one count of endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly leaving her 20-monthold son unattended in her car for at least 20 minutes while she shopped at the Dollar Tree store in the Pilgrim Gardens Shopping Center.
At 5:09 p.m. Wednesday, township parking enforcement officer Bradley Carrea wrote a ticket for a Nissan Altima in the shopping center when he found a small child in the back seat of the vehicle. He waited a few minutes to see if the owner was close by and eventually called 911. Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said Carrea did not attempt to enter the vehicle on his own, opting instead to call police.
“I approached the vehicle, which was not running and had all the windows up, and placed a lock out kit on the trunk and observed the child in the back seat strapped into a car seat,” reads the affidavit of probable cause and incident report filed by Officer Francis Devine. “The baby’s head was slumped down, he appeared to have shallow breathing and was sweating.”
Devine gained access to the inside of the vehicle through an unlocked door and removed the baby, “clammy and his clothing moist from sweat.” He then placed the tot in his air-conditioned police car. At the time, the temperature reading from his vehicle read 86 degrees outside, compounded by the heavy humidity at the time. (The National Weather Service recorded an official temperature of 80 degrees at Philadelphia International Airport at 4:54 p.m. with a heat index at 83 degrees and a dewpoint of 74.) Medics were then requested to evaluate the baby.
Police officers arrived at 5:28, according to Devine’s incident report, 19 minutes after Carrera first found the baby. Five minutes after the police arrived a woman, later identified as Chavous, walked out of the Dollar Tree and approached an officer, “demanding to know why we were in her vehicle.”
“Rather than ask if her child was alright she pointed to the lock-out kit that was on her trunk and demanded Officer (Jeffrey) Dougherty move it off her vehicle,” reads the incident report. “She then went on to state that she had only left her child alone for five minutes and demanded we give her child back.”
Dougherty tried to explain to Chavous the timeline police had preliminarily gathered as the basis for her arrest. She then became belligerent, according to the incident report. When officers tried to place her under arrest, the affidavit indicates Chavous pushed Dougherty away before Devine stepped in to restrain her and place her in handcuffs.
Charges against Chavous also include a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest.
The baby was taken to Delaware County Memorial Hospital and Devine was told a short time later that the child was doing much better. He reportedly drank a lot of fluids upon admission to the hospital.
Police tried to obtain surveillance footage to document what time Chavous arrived at the shopping center, but they did not have any luckm according to the incident report. A Dollar Tree employee told Devine that Chavous was shopping for 15 to 25 minutes.
Chavous was released on
$30,000 unsecured bond after a preliminary arraignment Thursday morning. She is due for a prelimianry hearing on Aug. 27 before Magisterial District Judge Robert Radano at
8:30 a.m.