Parents Arrested After Their 2-year-old Son is Found Home Alone, Stuck in Toilet

Police in Canton, Ohio arrested 20-year-olds Justice Chance and Rashaad Cuffee after their 20-month-old son became stuck in a toilet while left alone.

Police called to an apartment complex by neighbors who reported hearing a child crying said they found a toddler stuck in a toilet and marijuana growing in another room. The 2-year-old boy had used the toilet, then fell in and got stuck, according to police reports. Neighbors called police at 11:04 a.m. Thursday to report hearing a child crying for about one half hour in the Skyline Terrace apartment in the 900 block of Kingston Drive SE, said Lt. James Cole of the patrol division. The neighbors told police they had knocked repeatedly on the door but no one answered. No one answered the door for police, either. Officers contacted a maintenance worker with a key and entered the apartment, Cole said. The officers said they found the crying child in the bathroom. No one else was in the home. They freed the child, tried to find the boy’s parents and notified county social workers. They also found three marijuana plants growing in a cupboard in another room, Cole said. The jail records said the officers seized the plants and digital scales. Cole said that the boy’s mother was found nearly two hours later walking up to the apartment complex. She was carrying Wal-Mart bags. She told police that her sister was supposed to be baby-sitting, but she did not know her sister’s last name, Cole said. Investigators believe she had left the child alone and had gone shopping, he said. Officers also found the boy’s father hours after the child had been freed from the toilet, Cole said. Justice M. Chance and Rashaad M. Cuffee, both 20 and residents of Apt. 6 at 914 Kingston Dr. SE, were arrested about 1 p.m. Thursday and booked into the Stark County Jail, the jail records said. Each was charged with endangering children, illegal cultivation of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

source: Canton Repository

Justice was held in lieu of $26,000 bond and Rashaad in lieu of $25,250 bond pending court hearings. The boy was placed in foster care.