A woman is facing charges after four children were discovered unattended on New Year’s Eve in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago's West Side. The Chicago Police Department stated that Dominique Bishop-Smith, 29, was charged with four misdemeanor counts of child endangerment.
The incident came to light around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday when an 11-year-old boy flagged down officers. He reported being left alone, with three other young children inside a residence on the 4800 block of West Jackson Boulevard. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, police discovered the children in the home, the oldest being 11 and the youngest a 1-year-old boy.
With no guardian present, officers took the minors, which included another boy aged 7, and a 4-year-old girl, to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park as a precautionary measure. The relationship between Bishop-Smith and the children has not been detailed publicly.
"The 11-year-old waved down officers about 1:30 p.m. in the 4800 block of West Jackson Boulevard," WGN-TV reported. He told them he had been left alone with other children in a house on the block. When they went to the address, officers found a 1-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy.
Further details about the case have not been released, and it remains unclear how long the children were alone or what prompted Bishop-Smith to leave them unsupervised. The investigation is ongoing as authorities continue to piece together the events that led to the children’s abandonment on the cusp of the new year.
