A mother and her boyfriend were arrested after they punished her three young children by leaving them in the desert in Twentynine Palms in temperatures just shy of 100 degrees on Wednesday, sheriff’s officials said.
The children — a 7-year-old girl, 6-year-old boy and a 5-year-old boy — were discovered about 11:20 a.m. near the 74-000 block of Samarkand Drive, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Their parents were “down the road from the children,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Cynthia Bachman said.
Officials haven’t determined why the children were being punished, but they did not need medical treatment after they were found.
They had been in the desert for about 45 minutes without any shoes or water before a local resident alerted authorities. At the time, temperatures were about 95-100 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
“The temperature was going up over the course of that hour,” said Todd Lericos, a meteorologist.
Temperatures topped off at 104 degrees and there was no wind to help cool the area, he said. – READ MORE
