KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police are investigating after a child was found inside an unlocked car around 7 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 4 in Kansas City, Mo. On Tuesday afternoon Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd filed a class A misdemeanor charge of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child against Tiquana Pasco, 29, of Kansas City, Mo.
According to a report filed by police, witnesses noticed a two-year-old girl sitting in an unlocked vehicle with its windows partly down in the 8600 block of Boardwalk in Kansas City, Mo. The girl was in a car seat and was wet with perspiration, according to witnesses. Jeremy Welch said after his family finished having dinner at Chipotle, he saw the girl in the backseat, and when he looked for a parent, he couldn’t find one.
“We had dinner, we came out, and I noticed as I passed a car parked in a handicapped spot that there was a child in the backseat, she was unattended, the windows were cracked, it was 91 degrees out and she was sweating profusely,” witness Jeremy Welch said. “Finally my wife said, ‘the little girl can’t stay in there.’ She opened the car and pulled the child out. The woman with the car next door, she got a bottle of water and was giving the little girl some water.”
The witnesses then took the child inside Chipotle to cool off. While walking to the restaurant, Pasco emerged from a Game Stop and began yelling at the people to return her child. They didn’t.
“She’s like, ‘why are you touching my child, why do you have my child?’ She (Welch’s wife) explained, ‘well, you left your child unattended in this hot car, so I took her out,'” Welch explained.
They waited inside Chipotle for police while fending off Pasco, who by this time was allegedly hitting Welch. In the process his shirt was torn.
“She became extremely irate and ran over and grabbed her child and yanked on her. The child then began crying and my wife said, ‘no, I am not giving you your child back. You need to wait for police,'” Welch said. “She continued to shove at me and slap me and push me to try and get around me, and I just stood in her way and told her she couldn’t have her child back until the police got there,” Welch said.
When responding to the call, the reporting officer noticed the temperature inside his vehicle was 89 degrees. When the officer arrived, Pasco was insistent about her daughter being returned to her.
She told police she left her daughter inside the car because she was asleep. In the process of the commotion the child vomited four times. Witnesses told police they removed the child’s shirt because “it was wet.” She was later placed in the care of a family member.
According to a probable cause statement, Pasco told police she was inside the Game Stop to return a cord and was inside for three-to-four minutes before coming out and seeing a stranger holding her child. She told police she “scuffled” with one of the witnesses who was standing between her and the witness holding her child. After she was detained she told police, “I was totally wrong for leaving her in the car.” She also said she was aware of the recent cases where children died as a result of being left in a hot car according to the court document.
Online records show Pasco is still in police custody, being held on a $1,500 cash or surety bond. If convicted she faces up to a year in jail.
