A Mississippi cop left her 3-year-old girl in her patrol car for up to four hours while visiting a fellow cop identified as her boyfriend.
When Long Beach police officer Cassie Barker returned to the patrol car, her daughter was unresponsive.
The toddler, Cheyenne Hyer, was transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead, apparently of overheating, according to News Channel 10.
However, Hancock County Sheriff Sheriff Ricky Adam told local media that Barker’s patrol car was running with the air conditioner on when investigators arrived on the scene.
But Barker could have easily turned the car on after discovering her toddler unresponsive.
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Long Beach police officer Cassie Barker (via Facebook)
Besides, leaving a patrol car running for four hours with a 3-year-old girl inside is not exactly the safest precaution.
But what can we expect from a woman who already had the child taken away from her by the state for an unrelated incident?
The incident took place Friday when Barker was visiting her boyfriend, Long Beach police officer Clark Ladner, at his home as temperatures outside reached the low 90s with the heat index soaring above 100 degrees.
Police say both Barker and Ladner were off-duty. They also believe Ladner did not know the girl was in the patrol car.
Both have been placed on paid administrative leave.
According to the Clarion-Ledger:
Bass said the air conditioner was on when responders got to the home. He said that in spite of the fact that police often leave their cars running with the air conditioners on while unattended, that there’s “no excuse for leaving your child in the car.”
“There’s no logical reason to do that,” he said. “It’s not an accident. She left the child in the car. We hear and read about this, it seems like quite often recently. It seems more than ever that people are leaving their infants and small children in the car to do tasks and shopping.”
At this point it’s unclear if there will be charges, but if there are, Bass said he expects Barker would be charged with negligent homicide.
Investigators have yet to interview Barker about the incident because she has been hospitalized. And not much information has been released about why the state took the child away from her on a previous occasion.
Earlier this year, a cop in New York killed his 4-month-old son by leaving it unattended in a hot car after forgetting to drop him off a daycare. Rome police officer Mark Fanfarillo was not charged.
It is mostly common for cops to kill their dogs by leaving them unattended in their patrol cars.
UPDATE: Long Beach police officers Cassie Barker and Clark Ladner were fired. Ladner, a sergeant, was were shift supervisor, according to the Sun Herald.
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