LAWRENCE — Authorities say a mother has been arrested after going to a Lawrence bar and leaving her two toddlers in a vehicle parked outside on a dangerously cold night.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that police responded around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday to a report that a customer was trying to get back into the bar after she was kicked out. Staff told police that the woman had been at the bar while her 2- and 3-year-old children stayed unattended in the vehicle as temperatures were in the single digits amid a polar vortex.
Officer Derrick Smith says the woman left before police arrived, but officers stopped her vehicle. He says the children weren’t hurt, although they were left “without heat for a substantial amount of time.” The woman has been booked into jail on suspicion of child endangerment and drunken driving.
