4 children left alone on New Year’s Eve in Austin; woman charged with child endangerment

The children, ages 1, 4, 7 and 11, were found in a home Sunday afternoon after one of them flagged passing police. A 29-year-old woman has been arrested.

SHARE 4 children left alone on New Year’s Eve in Austin; woman charged with child endangerment
Crime scene tape.

Sun-Times file

Four young children were left home alone on New Year’s Eve in Austin on the West Side, Chicago police said.

Officers found the children in a home in Austin on Sunday afternoon. The oldest child is 11, and the youngest is 1, police said.

Dominique Bishop-Smith, 29, was charged with four misdemeanor counts of child endangerment.

The 11-year-old waved down officers about 1:30 p.m. in the 4800 block of West Jackson Boulevard. He told them he had been left alone with other children in a house on the block. When they went to the address officers found a 1-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, according to police.

The relation between the children and Bishop-Smith is not clear. They were taken to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park as a precaution when officers were unable to find a guardian, police said.

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