NORTH MIAMI, Fla. — Two women were arrested Wednesday on child abuse charges after police said a 7-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy were found running down a North Miami street unattended after their mothers allegedly forced them outside to play and locked the door.
LaToya Garland, 40, and Mikequisha Gordan, 36, were arrested following the incident near Northeast Seventh Avenue and Northeast 132nd Street, according to their arrest report from the North Miami Police Department.
Police said an officer responded to the intersection at approximately 6:29 p.m. after a Miami-Dade County Public Schools officer spotted the two children running down the street alone.
According to the arrest reports, the children told officers that they and their mothers had met at an apartment in the 600 block of Northeast 133rd Street.
Police said the children told officers that Garland and Gordan then forced them outside to play and locked the apartment door.
After becoming tired of playing, the children knocked on the door several times but received no response, according to the report.
Police said the children then became hungry and walked to a nearby Publix at 12855 NE Sixth Ave.
According to investigators, the children were unable to get food at the store and attempted to walk back to the apartment when the school district officer encountered them.
A neighbor told investigators she had seen the children playing at approximately 5:45 p.m. and had also seen one of the women at the apartment.
Officers went to the apartment at approximately 6:48 p.m. and repeatedly attempted to contact the people inside but received no response, the reports stated.
Police said the neighbor also called one of the women several times. Officers could hear the phone ringing inside the apartment, but no one answered, the arrest reports stated.
An employee of the property was eventually called to the scene.
According to the reports, officers explained that they were concerned the occupants could be experiencing a medical emergency and needed to enter the apartment to check on their well-being.
The employee allowed officers inside, where police said they found Garland and Gordan unconscious on a sofa in the living room.
Both women were breathing and had a pulse but were sluggish to respond to stimuli, according to their arrest reports.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded and determined both women were stable.
Police said the women appeared to be impaired by an unknown substance, though the reports do not identify what, if anything, they had consumed.
Garland and Gordan were arrested on charges of child abuse with no great bodily harm.
According to the reports, one of the women began vomiting in the back of a marked patrol vehicle at approximately 8:20 p.m.
Police said both Garland and Gordan were initially taken to the North Miami Police Department before being transported to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
As of Thursday afternoon, both women remained behind bars. Online jail records listed their bonds as “to be set.”
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