Crime & Safety

Middletown Mom Calls Cops After Son, 12, Refuses to Go to School, Gets Arrested Herself: Police

The boy was found standing in the rain, locked out, and the mom told police she had an appointment and couldn't immediately return home.

MIDDLETOWN, CT — Apparently exasperated over her 12-year-old son not listening to her and refusing to go to school, a Middletown mother called police to deal with him but ended up getting arrested herself.

Police responded to a Front Street residence at about 9:30 a.m. on Monday and the officer located the 12-year-old boy standing near the back door. It was raining lightly and the boy was standing at the base of a covered staircase leading to the second-floor apartment where he lived, according to the police report.

The boy told the responding officer that he was locked out of the home. The officer asked the boy where his mother was and he said that she had left about 20-25 minutes before the officer arrived on the scene.

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The officer made contact with the boy’s mother, Tamika Jackson, via telephone.

The officer said that Jackson was “not very cooperative and stated that she had an appointment to go to and would not be available to return home immediately,” according to the police report.

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“Jackson did not seem to understand that she could not simply leave her child outside and call the police to deal with him,” police wrote in the report.

The officer told Jackson that she can’t lock her 12-year-old son out of the house on a rainy day without adequate shelter.

“He had no access to a restroom and no access to food or water,” the officer wrote in the report. “The victim had no telephone and his closest family resides in New Haven. Jackson stated that she was not concerned because he could have knocked on the neighbor’s door if he needed anything.”

Jackson was arrested on a charge of risk of injury to a child. She was released on a $10,000 non-surety bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 3.

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