Broward prosecutors have declined to pursue charges against a mother who was arrested for allegedly leaving her young daughter inside a hot car while she shopped in a Hollywood Walmart over the weekend.
Bodycam footage showed a police officer responding to the parking lot of the store on State Road 7 around 3:15 p.m. Sunday, shortly after the 4-year-old child had been pulled to safety by fire rescue workers.
Hollywood Police officials said a witness heard the child screaming from a cracked window, and rescue workers were able to pull the child out without breaking the window.
Officials said the engine was turned off while the child was inside the vehicle and that store surveillance cameras revealed the mother, 34-year-old Anastasiya Motalava, was shopping inside the Walmart for around 30 minutes while her child was left in the car.
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Motalava was arrested on one count of child neglect in the incident.
But a memorandum from Broward Assistant State Attorney Melissa Kelly released Thursday said charges against Motalava would be dropped.
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"There is insufficient evidence to establish that the defendant's failure to provide her child with proper supervision rises to the egregious level of culpable negligence required for felony charge of child neglect," Kelly wrote in the memo.
According to the memo, the child wasn't harmed and didn't require medical treatment. Motalava also told investigators that she believed she was only in the store for 10-15 minutes.
"While defendant's conduct is irresponsible, it does not rise to the egregious level of conduct necessary to show culpable negligence," Kelly wrote in the memo. "This was a single isolated incident of what may be deemed poor parental judgement that resulted in defendant's arrest on Felony Child Neglect charges."
Kelly went on to say that Motalava will "receive services and proper child safety education."
Since 1992, nearly 120 hot car deaths involving kids in Florida have been recorded by the non-profit Kids and Car Safety.
As of July, Kids and Car Safety has documented 11 hot car deaths nationwide in 2024. One of them was reported in Florida while another case is still pending an autopsy.
