GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.—A Grand Junction woman says a state trooper left her baby and her teenage niece unattended in her car for 25 minutes one night when he took her to jail after a traffic stop.
Keio Saupaia said Trooper Jeffrey Vrbas pulled her over at about 11 p.m. on April 28 when she had her 7-month-old daughter and 15-year-old niece with her.
She said Vrbas contacted her sister to come get the children, but that he didn’t wait for the sister to arrive before taking Saupaia to jail.
“If that was me, I could have been charged with child abuse,” she told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
Colorado State Patrol Capt. Ed Clark confirmed to The Associated Press Monday that Vrbas had arrested Saupaia. Clark said he doesn’t dispute Saupaia’s account but declined to discuss specifics of the incident.
Clark said the matter had been “handled internally,” but he declined to say whether Clark had been disciplined or to give any other details, citing confidentiality rules covering personnel matters.
“I just ask the public to trust that we would handle this appropriately,” he told the AP in a telephone interview.
Leaving children unattended on the side of a road doesn’t meet the patrol’s mission of providing “a safe and secure environment,” he said.
Vrbas did not have a listed phone number and did not immediately respond to a request for comment left with the State Patrol.
Clark said Vrbas had pulled Saupaia over for speeding and then arrested her when he discovered an outstanding warrant for her arrest. It wasn’t clear whether she was cited for speeding.
Saupaia said the warrant was from a 10-year-old dog violation. Clark said the law requires troopers to arrest anyone named in a warrant, no matter what the charge.
Saupaia said neither she nor her sister is upset about the incident, but they hope nothing similar happens to anyone else.
