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A TEEN mom left her baby in a car on a blazing hot day while she went and watched a kid’s movie, according to police.
The Florida mother went to the movie theater to watch “Smurfs” on Saturday when the incident occurred.
Tipora Merriex, 18, took her baby out of a Lake City Regal Cinema after the child kept on crying, according to WJAX-TV.
She then placed the 2-year-old in a 2002 Cadillac Escalade, leaving the child behind to finish the film, the report said.
“Witnesses confirmed Merriex remained inside the building while the child remained alone in extreme heat conditions,” the department wrote.
Officials say that the temperature outside was 94 degrees, with a heat index of 107.
When police arrived at almost 6 p.m., the toddler was “visibly distressed.”
Officers had to break out a window to retrieve the child, according to the arrest report obtained by Law & Crime.
Her daughter was “flushed, sweating, and crying”, police said in a statement.
The baby had been in the car for at least 30 minutes, the outlet reported.
It then said that the teenager was “nonchalant” about the ordeal, and did not think that the incident was a “big deal.”
Merriex was with her younger siblings at the time of the incident.
At one point, the report says that she had even sent them outside to check on the baby during the movie.
She claimed that she accidentally locked herself out of the car.
“Our officers acted swiftly to ensure the safety of this young child,” Lake City Police Chief Gerald Butler said in a release.
“Leaving a child unattended in a vehicle under these conditions is unacceptable.”
Data collected from 1998 to 2024
Since 1998, NoHeatStroke.org has been recording instances of child fatalities in overheated vehicles, providing one of the most thorough databases on this issue. Experts note that this website, in partnership with the nonprofit organization Kids and Car Safety, addresses a vital need due to the lack of a standardized national reporting system. This observation was emphasized in a study released last year in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.
- Almost three-fourths of children who died of vehicular heatstroke, also known as vehicular hyperthermia, were 2 years old or younger.
- Although 53% had been forgotten in parked automobiles, 24% got into a vehicle on their own.
- The 10 states where pediatric vehicular heatstroke was most common are Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
The mother was released from jail on Tuesday after being charged with child neglect.
“We are thankful the child is safe and urge all parents to prioritize the well-being of their child at all times,” Butler said.
When outlet WJAX-TV went to the house after her arrest, her younger siblings told them that the baby was OK.
Last year, 39 children died in hot cars, according to the National Safety Council.
So far, 15 children have died in 2025 from being left in hot vehicles.
The most common circumstance is that the child was forgotten in the car, according to data from NoHeatStroke.org.
