BEXAR COUNTY, Texas – A recent string of arrests in child endangerment cases highlights bigger issues in society, according to one local child and family expert.
Chelsea Steele, interim chief executive officer of Any Baby Can, said the problems are a byproduct of what is happening not only in the San Antonio area, but across the country.
“Wages have not been on pace. There’s not affordable child care,” she said. “So all of these things together can exacerbate these issues.”
Specifically, Steele is referring to three separate cases recently that led to the arrests of four adults.
In late July, sheriff’s deputies spent several hours searching a subdivision in west Bexar County, trying to locate the family of a 2-year-old boy who was found wandering the streets alone.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office put out an appeal for information on social media July 29 after a neighbor noticed the boy, wearing only a dirty diaper, making his way along a sidewalk near a busy street.
Deputies determined the child belonged to Destiny Celaya, 24, who they said phoned dispatchers about three hours after her son was already found. They arrested her on charges of abandoning/endangering a child and possession of marijuana.
A similar case led to the arrests of Alexandrea Prewett, 33, and Benito Lopez IV, 36, last Sunday.
In that case, deputies said a 2-year-old girl, also dressed in a dirty diaper, had been walking the streets of a southeast Bexar County neighborhood on her own.
A report says they also found “filthy” conditions inside her family’s home, including a strong odor of urine, animal feces, rotting food and bugs.
Additionally, they said there was an elderly person living in the home, surrounded by bottles of urine and sleeping on a blood-stained mattress.
The couple was also booked into jail on a charge of abandoning/endangering a child. However, investigators said they are considering additional charges.
Another woman, Danielle Segundo, 35, was arrested on the same charge Tuesday by San Antonio police.
A report says Segundo left her two daughters, 4 and 6 years old, inside a North Side apartment alone. It says officers, who had responded to a welfare check call, took Segundo into custody when she returned to the home.
“My heart breaks for those families in our community. We’re in a really tough spot,” Steele said.
Lately, she said her organization, which works to educate and empower families with children, has seen more parents in distressing situations.
Rather than cases like these ending with arrests, she said some of the parents would better benefit from community help.
“It takes all of us, every single person to come together and say, ‘How can we help each other?’” Steele said.
It will take a village of people helping people, she said, to avoid the pitfalls.
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