Mother charged for abandoning child

CRANSTON, R.I. (WPRI) -- A Providence mother is being charged with child abandonment after she forgot her baby boy in a stroller inside of a Cranston store.

Workers at the Dollar Tree on Garfield Avenue in Cranston discovered a one-and-a-half year old boy alone in a stroller at the end of an isle.

After searching for the parent or guardian, employees called the police who then took custody of the toddler.

About 30 minutes later, police report that 35-year-old Desiree Pope of Providence came to Cranston Police headquarters and reported the child missing.

Police quickly concluded that Pope was the mother of the boy who was found alone in the stroller at the Dollar Tree store.

Pope is being charged with child abandonment.

In court on Thursday, a police prosecutor told a judge what investigators had learned.

“She told officers that she was shopping in the plaza, she completed her shopping, and went to get on the bus to make her way home and then realized she had left her son at the Dollar Tree store,” said Cranston Police Insp. Karen Squizzero.

The police prosecutor told the judge that the little boy is healthy and now in the custody of his father. The mother has been ordered to not have contact with her son without permission.