Mother Charged After 18-Month-Old Son Is Left In Shopping Cart Outside Target
EASTON (CBS) -- A 27-year-old mother has been criminally charged after her 17-month-old son was left alone in a shopping cart over the weekend. The boy was discovered in the Easton Target parking lot by a good Samaritan about an hour before someone who knows the child called 911 to report he was missing.
The mother was charged with abandonment/endangerment of a child and will appear in Taunton District Court at a later date. Easton Police did not identify the woman, beyond saying that she is a resident of Acton, Maine, in order to protect the boy's identity.
According to police, a Target customer called police about the child around 1 p.m. Saturday. The boy didn't appear to be injured but was taken in an ambulance to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton for an evaluation.
Around 2 p.m., a man called police to report "that the child had been left behind in the parking lot accidentally. The caller was with the child's mother in Plymouth and said they were going to head back to Easton."
The mom told police that as she left Target with three friends, she "believed that one of her friends had secured her son in his rear-facing car seat." The group then took separate cars to Plymouth and the woman did not realize what had happened until she got there.
Massachusetts Department of Children and Families is investigating. They granted the mother custody of the boy Saturday evening.
