On an otherwise unremarkable Monday evening, the sprawling contemporary landscape of Canada’s Pickering Casino Resort was transformed into a backdrop for an unfortunate occurrence: three young children were discovered to have been abandoned in a parked car for about four hours. Casually resting on a lot within the casino’s expansive premises, the vehicle stood as a bleak testament to parental negligence.
As the dull monotony of their confinement in the vehicle bore heavy on their spirits, the children – aged 10, nine, and barely two – made the decision to escape from the immobile trap and venture into the streets nearby. Their laughter echoed eerily through the silence of the desolate neon-lit city, their innocent games starkly in contrast with their precarious situation.
The sight of these young souls wandering aimlessly alarmed the resort’s security personnel. On questioning, they were informed by one of the elder children that their mothers had breached the welcoming doors of the casino, leaving them behind. They were handed a lifeline in the form of a cell phone that tragically turned out to be as empty of life as their immediate surroundings: the device was completely drained of charge.
These details were confirmed by the Toronto City News which also added that the youngest child belonged to one woman, while the other two were the offspring of the other. For the purpose of privacy, the authorities refrained from revealing any names.
Upon being alerted, the officers from the local police department descended on the casino with a flurry of urgency. Subsequent launch of investigations unveiled disturbing scenes from the resort’s surveillance footage – the children had indeed been abandoned for over four hours.
The conclusion of the investigation threw the perpetrators into the stark glare of law enforcement. The absent mothers, a 39-year-old woman hailing from Aurora, Ontario, and her 41-year-old companion from Markham, Ontario, were arrested by Durham Regional Police officers. Charges of leaving a child unattended were brought against each of them.
Notified by the incident, the Children’s Aid Society swung into action, sparing no effort to offer support and counseling to the affected children. They were found to have escaped physical harm.
Tragic echoes of such incidents have resonated through the immensity of the United States where parents have been held accountable for leaving their children unattended while they embarked on gambling ventures within gaming properties.
In an unrelated incident at Harrah’s Joliet Casino in Illinois, a woman named Elizabeth Brothers of Boaz, Ala., found herself in police custody after she allegedly attempted to bring a firearm onto the gaming premises. Through the vigilant enforcement of security measures at the casino, Brothers was apprehended and subsequently charged with unlawful use of a weapon and possession of ammunition. While her firearm permit was applicable in her home state of Alabama, Illinois regulations did not extend that privilege. She has since been released on the promise of an impending court appearance.