Deputies: Woman shoplifted at St. Petersburg Target while kids sat in hot car
Deputies: Shoplifting mother leaves kids in hot car
Woman arrested, accused of shoplifting at St. Petersburg Target. Deputies found two children inside a hot car. FOX 13's Kailey Tracy reports.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A Pinellas mother sits in jail charged with leaving two children in a hot car while deputies say she went into a Target and shoplifted.
Officers say Valerie Coleman walked into Target on Park Street North in St. Pete on Monday and stole $219.32 worth of items. Two children under her care sat in a hot car in the parking lot while the feels-like temperature reached 100 degrees, the arrest report says.
St. Petersburg police investigation
What we know:
The report says Coleman drove a motorized cart around the store, picked out several things and hid them in her purse. On her way out, though, the loss prevention team, who saw everything through cameras in the store, stopped her.
While investigating the shoplifting, deputies found that Coleman left a one-year-old and a 14-year-old in a car that she’d turned off with no air-conditioning for about 15 minutes, deputies say. The report says both kids were extremely overheated and the one-year-old had to go to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
Florida good Samaritan law
Why you should care:
Pinellas County Deputy Geoff Moore says the law does allow you to intervene if you see a person or animal trapped in a hot car.
"As long as a person is acting in good faith, they believe that there's a pet or a human being inside of imminent danger, they called 911. They're going to be immune from civil liability if they break the window to a car to try to help, aid the person or animal inside," Deputy Moore with the PCSO Media Relations and Crime Prevention Unit said. "It's also important to remember that you need to remain on scene and wait for first responders to arrive so you can give them your information. You can't just break a car window and leave, and you need also minimize the damage when you're trying to get somebody out of the car as well."
Deputy Moore says the inside temperature of a car with the engine off can jump 20 degrees in just 10 minutes.
St. Petersburg court proceedings
What's next:
Coleman will be back in court Thursday afternoon.
The Source: Information in this story is from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and Coleman’s arrest affidavit.