Late Night Pickup Triggers Child Abuse Investigation

Authorities filed for a child abuse investigation into a Charlestown resident after an officer gave two boys a ride home early Tuesday morning.

The patrolling officer spotted the boys around 1:30 a.m. near the intersection of Main Street and Bunker Hill Street, according to a police report.

When the officer spoke to the boys, they said that they had recently moved, caught the bus home, gotten lost and couldn’t remember their new address. The officer drove the pair around town until they identified a building as their new home.

Dropping the boys off, the officer learned from the boys and their aunt—whose home they had gone to—that they had run away from their mother’s home because she and her boyfriend had hit them.

Among other abuses, the boys reported being struck with belts and baseball bats.

Later in the day, an officer spoke to the boys’ mother, who said she was unaware that they had left home. She told officers that she had recently gone through a difficult period. Her eldest son had been murdered in a drug-related incident, according to a police report, and she had been living in a domestic violence shelter due to the actions of the boys’ father (who was not her current boyfriend).

During the conversation, an officer spotted a baseball bat in the woman’s vehicle. She told officers that the bat was in her otherwise-empty car because she had been moving. An officer asked her to put the bat in the trunk.

The mother retained full custody of the boys, but the investigation continues.