Woman charged with child endangering

YOUNGSTOWN — A 22-year-old Austintown woman police said left a baby girl unattended in a car with the engine running is charged with child endangering.

Salaya R. Martin of Idaho Road was arraigned Wednesday in municipal court and will be back in court June 24 for a pretrial hearing on the misdemeanor charge.

A man who tracked down a police officer inside a bank on Belmont Avenue near Gypsy Lane alerted the officer to the situation Tuesday afternoon. The baby, roughly a year old, was in a car seat and the car, parked near a beauty shop, was unlocked, police said. The officer, when he reached in for the baby, noted that the interior was hot and the air conditioning was not on.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long it was before Martin showed up. When she did, she explained that she’d gone to get soap because her baby had thrown up but the officer said there were no signs of it. The woman went on the say that she had been in line at the store but then put her stuff on the counter and left.

The officer said in his report that the woman was not carrying a purse, it had been left on the passenger seat of the car. The child was released to Martin at the scene.