There was plenty of drama surrounding a 9-month-old baby girl who was dropped off Wednesday night at the Washington Park Police Department.
To begin with, the child was dropped off by a woman who was wanted by police. The woman was identified as Pepper M. Arnold, of East St. Louis.
"She turned the child over to the police, telling us that the mother refused to come and get her child," said Washington Park Police Chief Dave Clark. "She said she was leaving the baby with us."
Clark said Arnold told police she had the child for a couple of weeks.
When Arnold gave police her identity, they determined she had a federal warrant out for her arrest for fraud charges. She was arrested, and federal agents picked her up Thursday.
The child's mother was determined to be Roshanda Stewart, of the 4700 block of North Park Drive. Police located her Wednesday night and were able to convince her to pick up the child.
By the time she arrived, social workers from the state Department of Children and Family Services were also at the station, Clark said.
Call logs made by police officials show a call was placed to DCFS at 7:30 p.m., and no one from the agency showed up until 1:30 a.m., Clark confirmed.
Calls were made Thursday to DCFS seeking comment on why it took so long, but no one was reached.
Clark said he's disturbed by the length of time it took for DCFS officials to show up because the situation tied up a police officer who was needed on the street.
"It was seven hours that the officer was stuck inside of the station tending to the child. We have a shortage of manpower, and every officer is needed," Clark said.
At one point, the child's grandmother, JoAnna Rivers, who lives in St. Louis, came to the police station after she was told the baby couldn't be brought to Missouri. Once there, police ran a computer check to make sure the child was not being released to a sex offender.
"We found she had two warrants out for her arrest,"Clark said.
The warrants were from St.Clair County for failure to appear in court. Rivers was arrested.
When DCFS workers came and talked to the mother and grandmother, it was determined that the child should be taken from the family and placed into protective custody, Clark said.
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