Woman Leaves Kids Alone In Car While Shopping: Suffolk Police

LAKE GROVE, NY — A Brentwood mother was arrested on Wednesday after Suffolk police said she left her two children unattended in a car in Lake Grove.

A 911 caller reported two children were alone in a 2008 Nissan Pathfinder parked near Smith Haven Mall at approximately 6 p.m., police said. Officers determined the children, a 9-year-old girl and 3-year old boy, had been left in the vehicle, which was not running, by their mother, Guadalupe Guevara-Diaz, 27, for roughly 30 minutes while she shopped in the mall, police said. The temperature was approximately 37 degrees at the time, police said.

Guevara-Diaz was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. She was held overnight at the Fourth Precinct and is scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip on Thursday.

Child Protective Services were notified. The children were released to a friend of the family.