JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville mother has been arrested after she was accused of leaving her children at a truck stop with a loaded gun. 

According to the Riviera Beach Police Department, officers responded Monday to a Marathon Gas truck stop after a driver had refused to move a tractor-trailer from a gas pump for over three hours.

Upon arrival, officers say they found the truck, which was running, still parked at the gas pump. 

Inside the truck, officers noted a 5-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy rolled the windows down to tell them that the teenager was unable to move the truck. When the pair got out of the truck, they told officers that there was still a baby inside.

RBPD says that when an officer entered the truck, he noticed a handgun on the floorboard between the driver and passenger seats. 

Shortly after, RBPD says that the children’s mother, TorQuita Tashe Grifin, 36, was located with the driver of the truck. She told officers that the gun was hers and that she “left the children in the truck for about an hour” while leaving to buy food.

Griffin has been charged with three counts of child abuse, three counts of unsafe storage of a firearm and two counts of child neglect and has been booked into the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Main Detention Center.