Baby left inside running car by parents having a drink: Cops
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Inset left: Clarisse Finnegan (Flagler County Sheriff”s Office) Inset right: Norman Finnegan (Flagler County Sheriff’s Office) Background: Smiles at 9 Palm Harbor Village Way, Suite A, in Palm Coast, Florida (Google Maps)

A husband and wife in Florida are accused of leaving their infant child inside an unlocked, running car while they were inside a bar drinking.

Clarisse Finnegan, 28, and Norman Finnegan, 60, have both been charged with felony child neglect without great bodily harm, according to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office. The charges stemmed from an incident on Friday night.

It was approximately 10:20 p.m. when the sheriff’s office received a 911 call about a child left unattended in a vehicle outside the Smiles bar in Palm Coast, some 60 miles south of Jacksonville. Arriving deputies reported that they saw an infant in the back right seat of a white Volkswagen Passat “improperly secured in a car seat,” according to an arrest affidavit.

Video provided by the sheriff’s office showed responding law enforcement officers suggesting smashing a car window to get inside – until they realized the car was unlocked – with the key in the ignition and the air conditioning on. The infant “appeared to be in good health, was sleeping in the car seat, and did not appear to have any injuries to him,” the document added.

Less than ten minutes after the deputies’ arrival, a woman exited the bar and approached one of them, telling him the car was hers. She was later confirmed to be Clarisse Finnegan, the affidavit states. She was immediately handcuffed and questioned, and she told law enforcement that she was not at the bar alone; her husband was inside.

A deputy went inside and, based on Clarisse Finnegan’s description, walked Norman Finnegan out and detained him. According to the affidavit, a bartender inside of Smiles told deputies both the husband and wife had been drinking but that Clarisse Finnegan “had not been there long” and only had “a little bit” to drink.

Authorities then spoke with the witness who called them. The woman said she arrived at the bar at 10 p.m. and noticed the Volkswagen with its lights on and the engine running. About 15 minutes later, she saw a man exit the bar, look inside the vehicle, and then go back inside the bar.

“[The witness] stated no other persons approached the vehicle, and the older white male only came out one time,” the witness’ account maintains.

Both husband and wife then gave their accounts as to what happened.

Clarisse Finnegan said she was watching the child at their home but drove to the bar to get money from her husband so she could get “necessities” for their child at CVS. She said she was only at the bar for about ten minutes and left the boy inside because “Smiles allowed smoking inside of the establishment.”

She added that she went outside to check on her kid and then returned to the bar where she asked her husband if she could take him home. She was then “given a drink” by the bartender but only had “a few sips,” the affidavit adds. As her husband was about to pay the bar tab, she walked outside – where she was met by the deputies and detained.

Then came Norman Finnegan’s story. He had arrived at the bar at about 8:30 p.m. that Friday night so he could “get away” for a couple of hours, and he added that his baby “gets fussy when he is not around or home and that Clarisse is a new mother.”

Later, he was met by his wife who asked for “his assistance” with their child. He maintained that, in the short time she was at the bar, his wife walked out twice to check on the baby – though his explanations as to how long she was there were “inconsistent,” deputies noted.

After the couple’s arrests, a friend of Norman Finnegan’s was called to take care of the child. The couple were both locked up in the Flagler County Detention Facility.

Norman Finnegan was released the next morning on a $2,500 bond, while Clarisse Finnegan was released on her own recognizance, the sheriff’s office said. They were both arraigned on Tuesday.

“These two will never receive parents of the year award with this behavior,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said in a statement. “It’s never acceptable to leave an infant alone inside a running vehicle especially while inside a bar drinking. This kind of recklessness could have ended in tragedy. I want to thank the concerned citizen who reported this incident and our deputies who acted quickly to protect this innocent child.”

The Florida Department of Children and Families is also investigating the case.

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