Photo: click2houston.com
Accidents do happen, and the death of an 18-month boy was just that for the driver of a white Honda Civic pulling out of a residential parking lot in Houston, Texas. However, the tragedy could have been prevented if the boy’s mother had been taking proper care of him.
This terrible incident occurred last week and the mother, 18-year-old Gissel Vazquez, has been charged with felony child endangerment in the death of her toddler son. The driver who actually ran him over has been questioned by police and released, and no charges have been brought against her yet.
ABC 13 reports that surveillance video shows Vasquez walking through the mostly-empty parking lot with her 2-month old in her arms. She goes inside one of the apartments in the building and, after some minutes, a small boy comes in the frame, followed by another, much younger. That’s Vasquez's nephew and her oldest son, and they’re wandering around the parking lot all alone.
At one point, a woman comes out of the apartment complex and enters a white Honda Civic. She backs out of the parking spot and rolls forward but, because Vasquez’s son is in her blind spot, she runs him over.
It took Vasquez another couple of minutes to come out.
“In the video, almost two minutes pass with Alan still lying on the ground,” ABC 13 notes. “Then, you see the cousin pointing to Alan, and Vasquez comes running. She picks up her son and is heard screaming on the video.”
Prosecutors say that Vasquez is the sole to blame because she should have been minding the children. Because she has a history of doing stuff like this, an additional condition was added to her $10,000 bond: that she only be allowed supervised visits with her surviving 2-month-old.
“There was evidence in this case that indicated there were other incidents where she left these kids alone, unattended in the parking lot,” said Lynn Nguyen with the Harris County District Attorney's Office says.
One family relative tells the same media outlet that, before anything, they want the driver brought to justice for killing the child. They also want the media to understand that Vasquez is not a careless, irresponsible mother.
“This was an accident,” cousin Juriyoel Hernandez says. “Right now, they're telling her it's her fault and it's not her fault, they're blaming her and they don't even know her story. For sure, she thought her sister was taking care of her kid.”
ABC 13 reports that surveillance video shows Vasquez walking through the mostly-empty parking lot with her 2-month old in her arms. She goes inside one of the apartments in the building and, after some minutes, a small boy comes in the frame, followed by another, much younger. That’s Vasquez's nephew and her oldest son, and they’re wandering around the parking lot all alone.
At one point, a woman comes out of the apartment complex and enters a white Honda Civic. She backs out of the parking spot and rolls forward but, because Vasquez’s son is in her blind spot, she runs him over.
It took Vasquez another couple of minutes to come out.
“In the video, almost two minutes pass with Alan still lying on the ground,” ABC 13 notes. “Then, you see the cousin pointing to Alan, and Vasquez comes running. She picks up her son and is heard screaming on the video.”
Prosecutors say that Vasquez is the sole to blame because she should have been minding the children. Because she has a history of doing stuff like this, an additional condition was added to her $10,000 bond: that she only be allowed supervised visits with her surviving 2-month-old.
“There was evidence in this case that indicated there were other incidents where she left these kids alone, unattended in the parking lot,” said Lynn Nguyen with the Harris County District Attorney's Office says.
One family relative tells the same media outlet that, before anything, they want the driver brought to justice for killing the child. They also want the media to understand that Vasquez is not a careless, irresponsible mother.
“This was an accident,” cousin Juriyoel Hernandez says. “Right now, they're telling her it's her fault and it's not her fault, they're blaming her and they don't even know her story. For sure, she thought her sister was taking care of her kid.”
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