A teen mom from Florida has been arrested and faces a number of serious charges after she opted to put her baby in the trunk of her car in hopes of avoiding a ticket because she did not have a car seat.
19-year-old Breona Synclair Watkins was pulled over early Tuesday morning in Broward County, Florida when an officer noticed that a headlight was out on the 2005 Dodge Stratus she was driving and that she had drifted 15 feet into an intersection at a red light and then backed up, disrupting traffic.
According to the police report obtained by SunSentinel, Watkins 5-month-old baby had been sitting in the lap of a 14-year-old who was riding in the front passenger seat. Because she did not want to get ticketed for not having a car seat, Watkins drove long enough after the cops turned their lights on so that the passenger could hurriedly place the baby in the trunk by lowering a rear seat for access. Watkins was said to have driven with her baby in the trunk for nearly half a mile.
As one officer on the scene was walking back to the patrol car from the Stratus, another officer heard the sound of crying coming from the vehicle’s trunk.
The police found the baby lying on a pair of large hedge-cutting shears and near a rusty metal hanger, a large rusted tire iron, a used gas can, a plastic CD case as well as “other hazardous materials.” The officers noted that the temperature in the trunk was markedly hotter than the air inside of the vehicle.
Watkins was charged with child abuse, resisting an officer and five traffic-related offenses, including driving without a license and failure to have a child restraint.
She is being held at the Main Broward Jail on a $7,000 bond.
