A woman was arrested Jan. 21 after her three-year-old daughter was found running barefoot in traffic, having been separated from her mother for approximately five hours, according to a criminal complaint filed in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court.
The 39-year-old woman was charged with child abuse and child abandonment following the incident on Walker Road near a Walgreens store in Edgewood.
Edgewood police responded around 5:35 p.m. to reports of a small child running in the middle of the street without shoes. Two motorists had stopped their vehicles and helped get the child out of the roadway, according to court records.
Officers were unable to immediately locate the child’s family in the surrounding area. The child was later taken to Santa Fe.
When contacted by police, the mother told officers she had purchased a new car seat approximately a week earlier because her daughter kept “escaping” from the previous one, the complaint states.
The mother told investigators she believed she had secured her daughter in the car seat that day but may have gone back inside her home, though she was not specific. She said she visited several stores throughout the day, including an Auto Zone and a smoke shop, and believed her daughter was asleep in the back seat because the vehicle was quiet.
Kent told officers the entire incident was an accident and that she truly believed her child remained in the vehicle throughout the day, according to the complaint.
Officers cited the five-hour gap between when the child was found and when the mother reported her missing, her failure to check on the child while entering and exiting the vehicle multiple times, and the child being outside in cold weather without proper clothing or shoes as reasons for the arrest.
The mother was transported to the Santa Fe Adult Detention Center.