If you said “any length of time,” pat yourself on the back. But if you answered with anything less than “eight hours,” you’re still doing better than one unbelievable Baltimore mother.
Police say 24-year-old Alicia Brown left her daughter locked inside a car for more than eight hours while she visited Maryland Live! Casino.
Security discovered the little girl cold and crying at around 6:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. The mother was arrested when she finally left the casino and approached the car. The child was placed in the care of a relative, and Brown was placed in jail.
Not only is this story infuriating; it’s a real head scratcher. Set aside for a moment the fact that she would neglect a child to that degree — why did she feel she had to? Even if you are compelled to spending all day at a casino, is there really nowhere reasonably safe to leave your daughter?
But of course, no explanation could possibly be satisfactory. Anne Arundel County police spokesman Lt. T.J. Smith is right: “Personally, I don’t really care what her excuse is,” he said. “There’s not an excuse good enough to leave a 4-year-old child inside a car like this in cold temperatures.”
