Negligent Parents
2003-07-09 | 8:34 a.m.

Not much angers me more than negligent parents:

LANCASTER, California (AP) -- The foster mother of two young boys who died after being left five hours in a sweltering sport utility vehicle was arrested for investigation of child endangerment.

Leslie Sue Smoot, 48, was booked late Tuesday night and held on $100,000 bail. No court date was scheduled.

Sheriff Lee Baca said earlier Tuesday that those responsible for leaving the children in the car would be charged with child endangerment and possibly manslaughter.

"Vehicles are not playpens," he said. "Vehicles are not baby sitters. And vehicles, when they are not properly ventilated, are death traps."

Smoot told authorities she left the boys, ages 3 and 5, in the car around 9 a.m. outside A Child's Place Daycare, which she ran.

"She indicated she thought someone else was going to get the children out of the car, possibly her husband," Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Al Grotefend said. "There was some miscommunication."

Smoot told investigators she discovered the boys in their car seats when she returned in the afternoon and pulled them from the vehicle.

The 5-year-old was dead. His brother, who was severely dehydrated, died a short time later at a hospital, sheriff's Sgt. Paul Patterson said.

Afternoon temperatures hovered around 100 degrees in the high desert town about 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Officials from the Department of Children and Family Services said they will investigate.

A woman who answered the phone at A Child's Place Daycare declined to comment. Friends and parents gathered Tuesday at the 24-hour day care center.

Naeemah Edwards, whose daughter attended the center, told KABC-TV she was shocked.

"They come in with my daughter, and they play together," she said, adding that she would not let her child to return to the center.

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