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Background: The stretch of Rankin Highway in Midland, Texas where a little girl was spotted walking alone (Google Maps). Inset (left): Devonte Tremayne Hall (Midland Police Department). Inset (right): Ta’Lyjah Monea Conner (Midland Police Department).
The parents of a grade-school-age girl in Texas were charged with endangering her safety when the girl’s father wouldn’t drive her to school.
Ta’Lyjah Monea Conner, 23, and Devonte Tremayne Hall, 27, were arrested by Midland police after their young daughter was spotted walking alone along Rankin Highway while it was still dark outside. Police responded to calls from dispatch about the girl and eventually found her on the busy road’s 1600 block. According to reporting by KMID, a local ABC affiliate, the girl told police that she was walking to her elementary school after her father refused to drive her there.
The police officers took the girl into their vehicle to warm her up and give her a snack. As they had a conversation to find out more about why she was walking by herself, she reportedly said that it was her first time walking to school from her home. KMID estimated using Google Maps that the walk from her home to Pease Magnet Elementary School would have taken an estimated hour and a half. Police believed that the girl had already been walking for 45 minutes.
More from Law&Crime: Mom ran over 7-year-old after making him walk home from school for getting in trouble, police say
The girl reportedly told police that she didn’t know where she was going and that she had almost been hit by a car while crossing the street. KMID also mapped out the route from where the girl was found to the elementary school and estimated that she was still another hour and a half away from her destination.
Investigators interviewed both Connor and Hall and placed them under arrest for abandoning or endangering a child with imminent danger. They were booked into the Midland County Detention Center and posted bail. Their arrest dates and future court dates were not publicly available.
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