Inset: Hassanah Smith. Background: Comfort Suites hotel in Daphne, Alabama (WALA).
Cops in Alabama arrested a mother after she allegedly left her two sons, including a 5-year-old with autism, alone at a hotel for at least an entire weekend.
Hassanah Smith, 33, faces two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, according to jail records. The incident occurred at Comfort Suites in Daphne, which is roughly 13 miles southeast of Mobile. Daphne Police Chief Brian Gulsby told local Fox affiliate WALA that concerned hotel workers called cops on Saturday evening after the children had been roaming around all day without supervision. They had reportedly had no food to eat.
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When officers arrived at the hotel, they spoke with the older child, a 15-year-old boy, who was able to contact his mother. She reportedly gave cops the runaround, first saying she was at the store, then claiming she was in Tennessee.
“Then at some point Atlanta got mentioned,” Gulsby said in an interview with the TV station.
The police called in the Department of Human Resources, who said the kids could continue staying at the hotel, thinking that Smith would arrive by Saturday night. But the evening came and went, and Smith had yet to return, Gulsby stated. By Sunday morning, the younger boy, who is non-verbal, reportedly ended up in the pool, so hotel staff called cops again.
“The officers bought food for them both on Saturday and on Sunday and then finally, mom shows up about four o’clock or so Sunday afternoon,” Gulsby told WALA.
Cops reportedly later learned that this was an ongoing issue starting when the family checked into the hotel on July 27.
“They told the officers and the detective that came out that the boys being alone for hours or a day at a time was the pattern since they moved into that hotel,” the chief said.
Smith was arrested and taken to the Daphne Municipal Jail on a $2,000 bond.
