The San Francisco Police Department said on Tuesday they found the mother of a five-year-old girl who was abandoned outside San Francisco Zoo on Monday. The father of her one-year-old baby, who was in the car at the time, is also being questioned about the incident.
A woman was spotted by San Francisco firefighters, who were driving an ambulance past the scene, as she stopped close to the intersection of Sloat Boulevard and Great Highway around 6:20 p.m. on Monday. According to Officer Giselle Talkoff of the San Francisco Police Department, when the paramedics saw the woman pushing a small child out of the vehicle and onto the ground next to the San Francisco Zoo, they immediately contacted the police.
At the same time they also saw a man leaving the area on a skateboard, but police believe he might not have been aware that the young girl had been abandoned there.
SAN FRANSICO, CALIFORNIAhttps://t.co/nyoJoZwo3Y
— Dee (@quinnvinson0424) June 6, 2017
Mother of five-year-old who abandoned her child now in custody
Police were able to track down the man on the skateboard on Tuesday evening. They state that he is cooperating with their investigation. It turns out there was a one-year-old infant in the car when the woman abandoned the five-year-old girl and the man is that child’s father, while the woman is mother to both children. The man gave officials directions to a residence in Oakland, where the one-year-old child was being cared for by a babysitter.
The mother of the children afterwards surrendered herself to San Francisco police on Tuesday night and is still undergoing questioning.
Both children are now in the custody of Child Protective Services
NBC Bay Area reported that the five-year-old girl, who is originally from Arkansas, was not injured in the incident. On Tuesday night, both children were taken into the custody of Child Protective Services and according to Arkansas Matters, the Special Victims Unit (SVU) is handling the case.
Police have not shared the identity of either the woman or her partner and investigations are still ongoing.
Residents in the area are shocked over the incident
The NBC report quotes a resident in the Ocean Beach area who responded after hearing of the incident. Angel Padilla said it was “just an awful thing to hear,” saying you would never imagine someone just dropping off and leaving their child there. Padilla theorized that it might have been because there are a lot of people around the area and the child would have been found quickly.
