Florida Mom Leaves 3 Kids in a School Bus Overnight to Smoke Weed on a Boat
A Florida woman left her three children on a cluttered school bus, where they had a five-gallon bucket as a makeshift toilet, to spend the night smoking marijuana on a boat, authorities said. (Gulfport Police Department)
(IBEXNews) - A homeless Florida woman left her three children on a filthy school bus, where they had a five-gallon bucket as a makeshift toilet, to spend the night smoking marijuana on a boat, authorities said.
A patrol officer found the children — ages 3, 6 and 9 — just before 5 a.m. Saturday after spotting the mini-bus in a beach parking lot in Gulfport, a small city near Tampa, according to a news release.
The kids told the officer their mother had left around 9 p.m. the night before to go on a boat, police said. Marine patrol officers were alerted and began to search dozens of boats that were anchored offshore until they found the mother, later identified as 33-year-old Andrea Kerins.
The woman, who was on a boat with a man, had been smoking weed and told cops she planned to spend all night on the vessel, according to the release.
A Florida woman left her three children on a cluttered school bus, where they had a five-gallon bucket as a makeshift toilet, to spend the night smoking marijuana on a boat, authorities said. (Gulfport Police Department)
Police said the bus was cluttered and the kids were left without a cellphone to call for help or even a change of clothes. Besides the makeshift toilet, authorities also found a propane tank and a bin of mostly perishable food that hadn’t been refrigerated.
It appeared the family had been living on the vehicle, but it was not immediately clear who owned it. The name on the bus, “Meg’s Playhouse & Preschool,” is a defunct organization with which Kerins was not affiliated, according to police.
The suspect was arrested and charged with three counts of felony child neglect. Her children were taken to the Florida Department of Children and Families.
