VANCOUVER, Canada (WSVN) — An officer had a few words for a mother who left her two children in a hot car in Canada.
Cellphone video shows witnesses and the officer confronting the mother after finding the children, ages 2 and 6 years old, inside the car.
“Your kids were in there on a hot day; that’s pretty stupid,” said one witness.
“I was here for five minutes,” the mother responded.
However, surveillance shows that the woman was in the store for nearly 20 minutes.
The two children were rescued. However, they were dehydrated.
“You don’t seem to understand what you have done,” the officer told the woman. “Your children could have died. The windows were up, and it’s hot out.”
The temperature outside on that day was around 75 degrees, so the conditions inside the locked car likely climbed at least five to 10 degrees in a matter of minutes — leaving the children vulnerable to heat distress.
“Their body physiology, they haven’t quite develop the best coping mechanisms to the heat, so that’s why you have to be extra careful,” said an official.
The police chief stands by his officer’s reaction.
“I know he has children of his own, and you have to remember police officers are just people,” said Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer. “We’re all human beings and everybody may react slightly different to every set of circumstances, and he was trying to convey to that woman the seriousness of what she had done with her children.”
No charges have been filed but the case has been turned over to child welfare officials for further investigation.
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