New footage shows the moments after a little girl was rescued from a hot car while her mother was out shopping, police in Florida said, though they reportedly won’t be charging the parents in the incident.
The 4-year-old girl was rescued to safety from an SUV in a Walmart parking lot last Sunday after her mother, Anastasia Motalaba, had been inside the Walmart megastore for more than 30 minutes. This was revealed by Hollywood police.
Emergency crews rushed to the scene after witnesses heard a girl screaming from a broken car window, which was not moving, authorities said. According to NBC6.
The temperature that day reached 90 degrees. According to Accuweather.
The boy was rescued without emergency workers breaking the window.
Obtain body camera footage By local station The video shows a rescuer carrying a child in his arms as the car alarm blares and the passenger side door stands open in the blazing sun.
Hollywood police said surveillance cameras showed Motaraba, 34, shopping while the girl was left in the car.
Police arrested her and initially charged her with child neglect, but the criminal case was dropped on Thursday, according to local reports.
Broward County prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to move forward with the case and that no children were harmed.
The mother thought she had been in the store for 10 to 15 minutes, prosecutors said.
“While the defendants’ conduct was irresponsible, it does not rise to the level of egregious conduct necessary to prove negligence,” Broward County Assistant Attorney Melissa Kelly wrote in the memo, according to NBC 6.
“This was an isolated incident of what may be considered a parental error of judgment that resulted in the defendant being arrested on felony child abuse charges.”
Parents are expected to be educated on child safety.
Children left in hot cars have faced deadly consequences so far this summer, with more than 10 car heat-related deaths in the US this year.
Authorities say the tragic cases include a 2-year-old boy from New York and an 8-week-old girl from New Jersey, both of whom died in separate incidents on Monday.
An Arizona father has been charged with murder after he left his sleeping 2-year-old daughter in a car for three hours while he was “distracted” playing a PlayStation, then his wife returned home to find her dead in the stuffy car.
