Lubbock Woman Shares Harrowing Story of Finding Kids Inside Car With Passed-Out Parents
A Lubbock woman stumbled on a scary scene at a local CVS: a still-running car which contained two young children, including a baby, and a man and woman who were passed out.
"My daughter and I were leaving CVS Tuesday night, and there was a van parked beside my car. And I had noticed there was a man and woman that were passed out in the front seat. The van was still running," she said. "I noticed that there was a little girl, about two, climbing over the back seat and an infant."
The woman then went inside the CVS to alert the store manager.
When the woman and the store manager came back out, the little girl in the van had rolled down the window. The woman's daughter told the little girl to try to wake up her mom and dad. She tried, but wasn't successful; neither woke up.
"[The little girl] proceeded to climb out of the window into my daughter's arms," the witness explained.
Both the woman and the store manager attempted to wake up the mom and dad. The father eventually woke up, but the mother did not, she said.
"When he noticed his daughter had climbed out of the car, he got out and was trying to take his little girl from my daughter, but the little girl had a death grip on her. She kept saying, 'no, no,'" the eyewitness recounted.
The police arrived soon after. At this point, the father was visibly angry, so officers placed him in the back of a police car, she said.
The woman finally woke up and was asked if she had taken drugs, to which she replied, 'no,'" said the eyewitness. The woman was then placed into the back of a police car while police searched her vehicle.
"I don't know what they found, but they found something," the eyewitness said.
KFYO News reached out to Tiffany Pelt, Lubbock Police Department public information officer, regarding the incident. Pelt confirmed that officers responded to a call Tuesday evening claiming a woman was passed out inside a parked vehicle with two children at the CVS store on Slide Road.
The woman, 22-year-old Paullena Allen, was booked into the Lubbock County Detention Center and charged with public intoxication, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of controlled substance.
The father of the children, despite also being unresponsive in the vehicle for a time, was determined to be sober by officers. The two children were released into his custody at the scene. Pelt said the department forwarded the case to Child Protective Services.
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