Child Neglect at Canadian Casino: Mothers Arrested After Leaving Children Unattended in Car for Four Hours

Three children were in a car parked at for about four hours on Monday evening.

At one point, the kids decided to leave the lot where the vehicle was parked. They were found playing on a street close to the Pickering, Ontario gaming property.

When security guards approached the children, one of them told them that their mothers had gone into the casino.

One of the women handed the kids a cell phone but local police officers checked the phone only to find out there was no charge left.

The children are 10, nine, and two years old. No names were released by police.

The two-year-old belonged to one of the women and the older children to the other, according to the Toronto City News.

Officers arrived at the casino after they were alerted about the unsupervised children.

The police launched an investigation and viewed casino surveillance video showing the kids had been alone for over four hours.

Durham Regional Police officers arrested both mothers. Each was charged with leaving a child unattended.

One woman is a 39-year-old Aurora, Ontario resident who is the parent to the older kids. The other is a 41-year-old woman from Markham, Ontario, who is the parent of a toddler. Neither woman was named by the police.

The Children’s Aid Society was told about the incident. None of the children appear to have been injured.

Similar incidents have taken place in the United States. Parents were arrested in those incidents for leaving their children unattended while the adults went into the gaming properties to gamble.

A woman was apprehended last week after she allegedly took a into the in Illinois.

Over the weekend, Elizabeth Brothers, 61, of Boaz, Ala., was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of ammunition, according to Patch.

She was released on a promise to appear in court.

Last Thursday, Joliet police officers were alerted that casino security guards discovered a woman, later found to be Brothers, with a gun in her possession. Brothers had walked into the gaming property and were trying to enter the gaming floor. The entrance stopped her after a metal detector sounded.

Brothers has a permit for the firearm, which is valid in Alabama, but the gun permit doesn t apply to gun owners while in Illinois, police officers told Patch.