Hungry child stole; mom charged

CINCINNATI (AP) — Police have charged a mother with child endangering after her 10-year-old son was caught shoplifting food because he had not been fed at home that day.

Police Detective Linda Sellers said when she talked to the boy at a grocery store two blocks from his home Saturday night, he told her he was hungry and didn’t know where his mother was. His 11-year-old sister, who came into the store with an adult neighbor, said the mother was at work and they did not have a sitter.

A warrant was issued for Shiia Yett, 32, partly based on failure to obtain supervision of her children while she was at work and her refusal to leave work to pick them up. She turned herself in to police early Thursday and was held without bond for arraignment in Hamilton County Municipal Court.

Yett entered a plea of innocent on Friday, saying she left the children with a sitter when she went to her job as a waitress. A pre-trial hearing was set for April 15, and she was released on her own recognizance.

Hamilton County Job and Family Services was already involved with the family, based on a complaint last month on Yett’s care of her 17-year-old son, spokesman Brian Gregg told The Cincinnati Enquirer. Because no neglect was found, the 10-year-old boy and his sister remained in Yett’s care, Gregg said.

Since the shoplifting incident, the boy has been put in foster care, and his sister was placed with a neighbor.

Sellers said dealing with a 10-year-old who tried to steal food because he was hungry was heartbreaking.

“I don’t want him to start a life of crime at 10 because nobody is taking care of him,” she said.