Bodycam footage of Ciara Washington (center) being arrested in Sunrise, Fla. (via WPLG).
A Florida mother”s Walmart run came to an alarming end when police arrested her in the parking lot where she allegedly left her three young children inside a hot car.
Ciara Washington, 29, was charged with child neglect after police arrested her on Sept. 14 outside a Walmart store in Sunrise, Florida. According to an arrest document obtained by local news station WPLG, Washington was seen on surveillance video going inside the store just after 3 p.m. that day and did not return to her car until 3:46 p.m.
While she was inside, other Walmart shoppers called 911 to report that her three young children were by themselves in a hot car on the 90-degree day with the windows rolled up.
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On police body camera footage shared with WPLG, an officer can be heard confronting Washington about allegedly leaving her children in the car. In the video, Washington denied leaving her children alone in the car, which was allegedly found shut off with the windows rolled up. The officer can be heard telling Washington that “multiple” people called 911 when they saw the children in Washington’s Nissan Sentra, alone and without air conditioning, while the temperature was “90 degrees.”
WPLG reported that according to police, the air temperature was 82 degrees.
In the body camera footage, the arresting officer told Washington, “Mom to mom, it’s 90 degrees outside, you left them in the car long enough, multiple people called 911. It cannot happen.” She further warned Washington, “It’s South Florida. People kidnap kids all the time.”
According to the arrest documents, the oldest child was 7 years old and the two younger ones were under the age of 2. The report stated that one child was seen on the floor of the car, “another somehow in the trunk of the car.” Police said that the witnesses who found the children described them as being overheated and drenched in sweat.
One witness said they were alerted to the car after hearing a faint knock coming from inside the vehicle.
Police said that Washington eventually admitted to leaving the children in the car, despite initially denying she had left them alone.
Washington was charged with three counts of child neglect and booked into jail on a $3,000 bond. She no longer appears on the Broward County inmate roster.
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