ORANGEBURG, S.C. — A woman has been arrested and charged with unlawful conduct toward a minor after police say she left her 2-year-old child in the parking lot of an Orangeburg store parking lot.
According to a police report filed by the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety, the incident occurred on Tuesday around 1 p.m. at the Walmart Neighborhood Market on Stonewall Jackson Boulevard.
There, arriving officers met with the store manager who had a child in his office. The child, who had been given food, snacks, and a coloring book, had been left in the parking lot with a stranger, the manager said. The report states someone brought the child into the store where staff looked after him until police arrived.
The stranger in question said that she was loading her vehicle when she saw a woman walk by her and heard an interaction between her and another. That's when the stranger told police she saw the child walk toward her and grab her hand.
The child's grandmother and mother, later identified as 19-year-old Jamella Houser, arrived during the investigation and explained what had happened a short time earlier that led to the child being left.
The grandmother said that she and Houser, the child's mother, were in the parking lot when three other women began attempting to get her attention. Houser and the child's grandmother said that they had a prior history with the other women and the grandmother had allegedly been in a fight with one of them previously.
Knowing this, Houser said that she grabbed her child's hand and walked him to the car where she opened the door for him to get inside as she watched her own mother get in her car.
Concerned for the grandmother's safety, Houser said she quickly left the scene and didn't realize that the child had not gotten in the car, which she said he would often do on his own.
However, police ultimately arrested Houser for the incident, citing an estimated temperature of 82 degrees and the fact that the child was left unattended around a large crowd of people.
According to the police report, the South Carolina Department of Social Services was also called in and the child was placed with someone else for 72 hours.