Two recent cases in which Waco police arrested people on child endangerment charges because of filthy household conditions are unusual, local law enforcement agencies say.

Most departments make a few child endangerment arrests per year, if that, area officials said. And generally they are for intentional acts of abuse, rather than subjecting children to substandard living conditions, they said.

In Hewitt, for example, deputy police chief Tuck Saunders said the only child endangerment arrests he can recall involved someone driving drunk with a child in the vehicle.

Waco police have made 39 arrests for child endangerment since January. But as in other cities, the majority of those arrests stemmed from some action the person took, Waco police spokesman Steve Anderson said.

In March, for instance, a couple were arrested after their baby ate some prescription pills that police said the couple stole and then left out on a desk.

In April, a man was charged with the offense after he allegedly choked his toddler, then threatened to drop the boy over a balcony when he began to cry.

But in the two recent cases involving living conditions, the parents were arrested because officers thought the situations rose to the level of child endangerment as defined by the Texas Penal Code, Anderson said.

The law says someone commits the state jail felony if that person “intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence, by act or omission, engages in conduct that places a child younger than 15 years in imminent danger of death, bodily injury, or physical or mental impairment.”

In one case, police arrested a mother and father after officers went to the family’s house looking for evidence in a domestic assault case. They found exposed knives and “complete disarray and filth,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The affidavit mentioned dirty clothes in most rooms, dog feces in the house, urine-stained children’s bedding and a pantry that was nearly empty.

In the other case, police went to the home after neighbors reported two small girls inside were knocking on a window and asking for help.

An affidavit said the home was extremely hot and had no electricity. It also said the home was filled with dirty clothes, soiled diapers and old food.

Police say the mother, who was arrested, had locked the girls in their room for throwing a tantrum.

In each case, it was a combination of things that prompted the arrests, Anderson said.

Factors such as a house not having electricity or water, for example, aren’t automatic triggers. Officers look at the reason such deficiencies exist. If a parent is a drug addict, that’s a much different situation than if a parent has recently lost a job, he said.

“You have to look at the whole situation,” Anderson said.

Officers also weigh whether it’s in a child’s best interest for a parent to go to jail, Anderson said.

Sometimes the situation can be better handled through a referral to Child Protective Services, he said.

CPS spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said a parent’s arrest for child endangerment makes it more likely that a child will be removed from a home. But the agency can take such action even if there are no criminal charges, she said.

Gonzales said CPS sends reports on all its cases to the appropriate law enforcement agency so police can determine whether criminal charges are needed.

Other local police departments echoed Anderson, saying they look at each case individually to determine whether a criminal charge or CPS referral is more appropriate.

Bruceville-Eddy Police Chief Dan Ferguson said he didn’t know of any cases in which his department has made arrests based on living conditions. But if the situation were bad enough, officers wouldn’t hesitate to apply the law, he said.

“If there’s no food, no water, that’s serious, and you want to immediately take care of that,” Ferguson said.

cculp@wacotrib.com

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