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Florida Woman Locks Daughter in Hot Car for 3 Hours So She Can Shop

It’s one thing to forget your child inside the car because of some change in your daily routine, and it’s an entirely different kind of thing to deliberately lock him or her there so you can go about your business without a care in the world.
Florida woman locks daughter inside hot car so she can shop for 3 hours 17 photos
Photo: sun-sentinel.com
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One mother has been hit with an aggravated child abuse charge after she did the latter. It happened in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the parking lot of a shopping center, where the mother would end up spending 3 hours perusing items in the middle of the day, while her toddler daughter suffered from heat exhaustion in the locked vehicle.

Shantrell Mitchell initially told the police that she simply forgot her toddler was in the backseat of her car, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports. Her story was proved false by surveillance footage pulled off a nearby security camera, which showed her looking in the back of the car before manually locking it and walking away.

“Common sense – unreasonable to believe she would not have seen her child in the car seat while manually locking the side passenger door where the child was seated,” prosecutor Eric Linder says for the publication. The police report says the same thing, noting that Mitchell “intentionally [left] the child victim in the locked vehicle.”

When Mitchell returned from her shopping, her daughter was having convulsions from heat exhaustion. She poured iced tea on the child’s head and gave her some to drink, but the child was still in bad condition when paramedics arrived. The good news is that she “drastically improved” once at the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.

“[The day’s] high temperature in South Florida was in the low to mid 90s,” the publication notes. “Temperatures inside a closed vehicle could easily climb to over 152 degrees in minutes.” The girl’s body temperature was at 105 when paramedics arrived.

Mitchell has no prior criminal record. For the charge brought against her, which is a first-degree felony, bond was set at $10,000. She was still in custody as of last Friday.
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About the author: Elena Gorgan
Elena Gorgan profile photo

Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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