Round Rock Police Charge Woman For Leaving Kids In Car Outside Grocery Store

ROUND ROCK, TX — A woman is accused of abandoning her infant daughter and toddler son, leaving them alone in a locked minivan with the engine running at a grocery store parking lot, according to a published report.

Referencing an arrest affidavit, the Austin American-Statesman reported the woman's three-month-old daughter and two-year-old son were left alone for several minutes in the vehicle. Police were alerted late morning on Feb. 15 to the scene at an HEB store at 1700 E. Palm Valley Blvd., according to the affidavit.

Upon arrival, a police officer saw the older child moving around the minivan and determined he had rolled up the window. The infant was strapped to a child's seat. The woman emerged from the store, acknowledging her "lapse of judgment," but insisting she had only been away for five minutes—a claim contradicted by surveillance camera footage showing she left the vehicle at 11:27 a.m. and returning 12 minutes later, according to the report.

The mother, Sarah Hernandez, 32, was subsequently charged with abandoning or endangering a child, which is a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in jail. She was not in custody as of Wednesday.

>>> Read the full story at Austin American-Statesman

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