A 2-year-old boy was discovered home alone in a yard sucking on a frozen chicken breast.
Iowa mother, Hallie Elizabeth Amick, 30, was charged with child endangerment causing physical injury and drug possession.
The Des Moines register reports, officers stopped a vehicle for speeding on Monday morning. The man told police he was rushing home because a child had been left alone.
Another officer was sent to check on the house where the child was found alone in the backyard with a full diaper, sucking on a frozen chicken breast, according to a police report.
A small terrier was jumping at the boy, trying to get at the chicken, the report said. A neighbour said she’d previously seen the dog bite the boy and the boy hit the dog with sticks.
“His diaper was almost down to his knees,” said Deborah Snyder, 57, who can see into the yard from her apartment window.
Snyder told police Monday that Amick often leaves the child alone at home.
“This is the first time he got out of the house, but ever since they moved in they (left) him alone,” Snyder said. She said Amick moved into the home around the beginning of the year.
Another neighbour told police she once found the child alone in the middle of the street.
When Amick returned home on Monday almost two hours after police were called, she claimed it was the first time she’d left her child unattended. But once confronted with the statements of her neighbours, Amick admitted the she left the child alone on “occasion.”
Police searched the home and found a marijuana pipe, “blunts” and marijuana stems.
The Iowa Department of Human Services was called to the scene.
Amick was released from jail after her first court hearing.
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