Mom found passed out at city bus garage

By JOE GORMAN

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Police and city school employees looking for a woman who was not there when her kids were taken home Monday by a school bus found her passed out at the bus garage.

Jonnie Winslow, 31, was arrested on a charge of possession of drugs, a felony. She is in the Mahoning County jail and is expected to be arraigned in municipal court today.

Officers were called about 5:45 p.m. to the Youngstown City Schools bus garage at 1500 Teamsters Drive after a 5-year-old and two 7-year-olds could not be dropped off at their home on the South Side because there was no adult there to greet them. Employees tried several times to reach the mother, but they could not, reports said.

Schools spokeswoman Denise Dick said it is district policy that when students up to third grade are taken home and there is no adult to greet them, they are then taken back to the bus garage, where employees try to reach the parents. Sometimes, those efforts also are made as the bus is en route back to the garage, she said.

As officers were gathering information, they were alerted that two women were passed out in a car in the parking lot. Police checked and found two women, including the mother of the children, Winslow, unconscious.

The two woke up after several attempts to revive them, and both looked like they were under the influence of drugs, reports said. Both women told police they had recently taken methadone, and witnesses told police they had been asleep in the car for at least a half-hour.

When Winslow got out of the car to be examined by paramedics, officers found a bag of suspected methamphetamine where she had been sitting, reports said. She was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital to be examined before being booked into the Mahoning County jail on a charge of possession of drugs.

The driver was placed in a cruiser after she was examined, then passed out in the cruiser. Reports said she was then also taken to St. Elizabeth. Because the keys were under the seat, she could not be charged with physical control of a vehicle while under the influence, reports said.

The children were placed with a relative.

Winslow also had a warrant from municipal court for failure to appear, reports said.