Grandma Leaves 1-Year-Old Alone on Porch While She Goes Drinking

A 45-year-old woman is facing child neglect charges after police say she left her 1-year-old grandson alone on their unlocked back porch — wrapped in paper towels — and went out drinking.

The incident happened around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday when the temperature was still in the mid-80s after a day of record heat in the mid-90s. The young boy did not appear to be harmed and was turned over to the custody of the Child Welfare Bureau.

The woman, who lived off and on with her boyfriend, would later claim she had only gone to the bar a couple of blocks away from the home in the 2400 block of Pasadena Boulevard to make a quick phone call — and that she had only had one beer.

But police say they already knew better than that.

According to their report:

Wauwatosa police received a call from a bartender at , 8828 W. North Ave., that a woman had been drunk and disorderly in the tavern and had just left, and he feared for her safety.

When police arrived at the bar, the bartender told them she had come in after last call and became upset when she was refused service. She wanted to know why everybody else had a drink. When the bartender told her they had all ordered before last call and he couldn't serve her, she grabbed another customer's glass of beer off the bar and chugged it, then walked out.

A police officer found her sitting on a neighbor’s lawn near her home, so drunk she couldn’t stand. The officer decided to help her home, but the house was locked and she didn’t have keys. The officer called the station and asked a dispatcher to phone the home, and a man finally came to the door.

The man asked if the woman was drunk, and told that she was, he refused to let her in because, he said, she becomes violent and abusive when drunk. Then he asked if she had a small boy with her.

No, the officer said, she didn't.

Surprise in store for police officer

Meanwhile, the woman had wandered off to the back of the house and sat on the back steps. The officer found the woman asleep, and when he woke her and asked her to come to the front to talk to her boyfriend, she said, “OK, but I gotta get my grandson.”

She then opened the porch door — it wasn’t locked — and the officer saw a small child sleeping on the floor, wrapped in paper towels. She picked him up and lost her balance, so the officer grabbed the boy from her and led her to his squad car.

The 68-year-old man she lives with said he had last seen her and the boy around 4 p.m., then he briefly left the house, and she and the boy were gone when he returned. He said he had checked the porch when he locked up around 9 p.m. and had not seen the boy then and didn’t know when she might have returned to the house to leave him.

Back at the booking room

The woman was so uncooperative at the police station she could not be fingerprinted or photographed, so she was put in the "bullpen" to sober up. In a statement later in the morning, she said she had gone to the tavern only to phone her daughter to come and get her and the boy but couldn’t reach her.

She said she was sure the boy would be safe because he was asleep. And she denied having been intoxicated and said she had only had one beer – she didn't say whose beer that was.

The woman's boyfriend said the mother of the 1-year-old left him in her mother's care when she recently joined the U.S. Army. He said she was in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in central Missouri. He did not know who the boy's father is.

The grandmother's case was forwarded to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office and she was sent to the Milwaukee County Criminal Justice Facility.