http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/police-dad-locks-baby-in-pickup-while-he-913467.htmlAn Orange County father was jailed this weekend after his 17-month-old child was found locked inside of a pickup while he went to a bar to drink, police said.
William Ferrer, 33, was arrested and charged with child neglect after a passerby heard his child screaming inside the vehicle and called police around 1 a.m. Saturday. When Orlando police arrived, the child was "standing in the front passenger seat, screaming and crying," according to Ferrer's arrest affidavit.
Shortly after officers arrived, Ferrer walked out of Clicks Billiards on S. Semoran Boulevard and told officers he stopped at the bar for five minutes to say hello to a friend and didn't drink any alcohol, according to the document.
But witnesses told police Ferrer was inside the bar for 30 or 45 minutes and drank two beers. He was arrested and taken to jail. The baby was turned over to the mother and the Department of Children and Families was notified, police said.
He has since been released from the Orange County Jail.
Ferrer is the latest of several parents arrested recently for leaving children locked in cars or at home alone.
•In June, Bobby Lamar-Marquise Sims was arrested on child neglect charges after he was accused of leaving his girlfriend's two sons, a 6-year-old and a 6-month-old, home alone in Apopka. He was on the run for two weeks before he was arrested.
•Last month, Formeka Sanders, 29, was arrested after her 4-year-old was found wandering in the Oak Glenn Apartments parking lot at 1:45 a.m. Sanders left five of her six children — ages 12, 10, 9, 4 and 2 — home alone at their apartment on Mercy Drive while she went to Club Firestone in downtown Orlando, police said.
•Another Orlando mother, also arrested in August, allegedly left her three children in a hot car while visiting her boyfriend at the Orange County Jail. Psalmai Thompson, 20, was arrested on a count of child neglect. The Department of Children and Families took custody of Thompson's children — ages 2 months to 5 years — and placed them in care of a relative.
•Last week Marie St. Armond, 31, was arrested and charged with child neglect after leaving her five young children, including a 4-month-old infant, home alone while she was at the library applying for food stamps.