Mom charged after 6-year-old wandering the street

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A Falls Avenue woman was arraigned Monday in municipal court on child-endangering charges after reports said officers found her 6-year-old son wandering on a South Side street at 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

Barbara Wilson, 30, is free on bond until an April 26 pretrial date, according to court records. The charge is a misdemeanor.

Reports said officers were called to the Market Street and Woodland Avenue area after a motorist saw the boy crossing the street. Police later found the boy at the corner of Woodland and Erie Street. He was not injured.

Reports said the boy told police he did not know the number for his house, but could show police where he lived. He took the officers to a home in the 200 block of Falls Avenue where reports said his mother, Wilson, was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car with a man in the passenger seat.

Reports said she told police she was outside smoking and she did not know how her son could have gotten outside. She later admitted, however, she went to the store with the man in the car while her son was alone.

Reports said the inside of the house was filthy and in disarray. There was hardly any food in the home, and the boy had two siblings who were with their grandmother in Liberty, reports said.

Wilson was taken to the Mahoning County jail. The boy was placed with his grandmother, reports said. Wilson was released later Sunday from the jail with a summons to appear in court.