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By James Cummings and Kristin McAllister
Staff Writers Updated 6:52 PM Tuesday, September 29, 2009

MORAINE — A family decision led to the surrender of a 17-year-old Tuesday, Sept. 29, who ran from police and abandoned her infant at a Walmart on Monday night while still in handcuffs after she had been arrested on suspicion of shoplifting.

“It was a family decision, according to her mother,” Moraine police Detective Paul Guess said, referring to the teen’s decision to turn herself in to juvenile authorities just after noon.

The girl was booked into the Montgomery County Juvenile Detention Center on a probation violation. Charges of child abandonment and shoplifting would be added later, Guess said.

Guess said the probation violation warrant “might have been her motive for running.”

The 8-week-old girl is in the custody of the children service division of the Montgomery County Department of Job and Family Services.

“Children services is going through their process to determine if somebody in the family has the resources to take care of the baby, at least temporarily,” Guess said.

The 17-year-old, who was in jandcuff, evaded store security and bolted from the store at 1701 W. Dorothy Lane. She slipped out of the handcuffs and tossed them into the backyard of a home near the Golden Nugget Pancake House, Guess said.

The girl did not reveal where she had stayed Monday night, only that “she didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

The incident started at about 5:15 p.m. Monday when police were notified that the girl had been detained for trying to leave the store without paying for merchandise, Guess said. Store security told police the girl had concealed $59 in baby clothes under the child seat in her shopping cart.

Store security brought her and her baby back into the security office. Guess said when police arrived, the girl gave them two different false names.

The officer handcuffed the girl and left her in the security office with store personnel while he went to his cruiser to get paperwork he needed to fill out. Before he returned, security officers ran out and said the girl had run off, Guess said.

Guess said the officer spotted the girl running in the area of Oakland Avenue near the Golden Nugget Pancake House. By the time the officer got across the street, she had disappeared.

“We would have to assume that at some point somebody picked her up,” Guess said.

Detectives don’t know how the girl got to the store or if someone may have been waiting for her in a vehicle in the parking lot.

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