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WEST JORDAN — A mother accused of leaving her 7-year-old son in the car wearing only shorts while she was either asleep or passed out in her apartment, was arrested for investigation of child abuse with criminal negligence.
A tenant at an apartment complex near 5500 West and 9000 South heard a 7-year-old screaming and crying inside a car about 3 a.m. Sunday, according to a Salt Lake County Jail report.
The boy's mother, Amber Dawn Catlin, 29, reportedly drove him and his 1-year-old brother home from another house. Catlin took the 1-year-old into her apartment. But the 7-year-old had fallen asleep in the back, the report states.
Investigators believe the boy had been in the car several hours by the time he woke up. He was wearing only a pair of shorts and had no shoes, socks, shirt or blanket. The responding officer noted the temperature outside when he arrived was 41 degrees, West Jordan Police Sgt. Dan Roberts said.
The boy led the officer to his apartment, "where officers pounded on the door attempting to wake the boy's mother for nearly 30 minutes," according to the report.
Roberts did not know why the boy didn't get out of the vehicle and walk up to the apartment on his own before police arrived, but noted, "I don't know if he would have been able to get into the apartment because the officers were banging on the door for 30 minutes trying to get a response."
The officers eventually found a maintenance worker to open the door, the report states.
"After repeated call outs to the mother and repeated attempts to wake her, she finally woke up," police wrote. The mother told the officers her 7-year-old son was asleep upstairs, even though the apartment did not have an upstairs, the report states.
The mother later admitted she had been drinking heavily at a friend's house that night. When officers gave her breath test, her blood-alcohol content measured 0.129, or about one-and-a-half times the legal limit.
Officers placed the two children in the custody of another family member.
