PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The mother who left her 1-year-old son in her van on a hot summer afternoon while she shopped for clothes two weeks ago was charged with child neglect on Wednesday.
On July 5, a passerby outside the PayHalf store on Eagle Street found the baby sweating and crying hysterically, holding a plastic dry-cleaning bag, inside the unlocked van. The windows were rolled up in the 90-degree heat, and the baby's body temperature was 101.6 degrees -- a little more time, the police say, and he would have died.
The mother, Decontee Brooks, 28, of 14 Cornplanter Row, was taken into custody after she rushed out of the store, insisting to police that she was a good mother. Store employees told police that she'd been shopping for a half hour.
After an investigation, Sgt. Michael Wheeler, of the Youth Services bureau, charged Brooks on Wednesday with neglect. She was arraigned at Family Court on the misdemeanor and released on $500 bail, said Maj. David Lapatin.
Brooks' baby, the youngest of her four children, has been returned to her, Lapatin said. Brooks remains under supervision of the Department of Children, Youth and Families.