CONNECTICUT — A toddler was found sleeping in a parked car outside a Connecticut bar early Saturday, hours after police discovered her allegedly intoxicated and incapacitated mother sleeping inside the bar.
Shortly before midnight Friday, Bristol police officers responded to a call about an intoxicated woman sleeping at City Sports.
The woman, identified as 22-year-old Kelsey James, was taken to Bristol Hospital for treatment and evaluation, according to a Bristol police press release.
More than five hours later, James was lucid and asked hospital staff about her 2-year-old daughter, police said.
Police officers obtained a description of James’ car, which was parked in the City Sports parking lot.
Police found the toddler sleeping in a car seat. The child was taken to Bristol Hospital for evaluation and was being held for Connecticut child welfare authorities, police said.
James, a Bristol resident, was arrested Saturday and charged with risk of injury to a minor and leaving an unsupervised child in a motor vehicle. She was released on a $50,000 surety bond for appearance in Bristol Superior Court on September 2, police said.
Attempts to reach James for comment were unsuccessful.
On Wednesday, the Connecticut medical examiner ruled the death of a 15-month-old boy who was left in his father’s car in July a homicide.
The cause of Benjamin Seitz’s death was hyperthermia because of environmental exposure, the state medical examiner said.
On July 7, Kyle Seitz was supposed to drop his son off at day care in Ridgefield, Connecticut, but the dropoff never occurred, his wife, Lindsey Rogers-Seitz told CNN last month.
Seitz drove to work, and at the end of the day, picked Ben up at day care, only to realize he was not there.
That was when Seitz found his son in the car. He rushed the child to the hospital, but Ben had died.
No criminal charges have beeen filed in the boy’s death, but state prosecutors said the investigation was continuing.
Benjamin Seitz’s death came in the wake of the June case of 22-month-old Cooper Harris, whose death after being left in a hot car in Georgia drew international attention.
