HIALEAH, Fla. – A missing child and abuse investigation all began with a mother’s rage over “spilled shampoo,” according to a newly-released arrest warrant, leading her to push her 1-year-old out of a car along a Hialeah roadway — and culminated in her arrest.
Authorities said a witness grabbed gravel-covered toddler Cassidy Mills from the street after seeing what happened. Police said Cassidy’s mother, Tasshay Mills, drove off after pushing her out, then made a U-turn and came back and forcibly took Cassidy from the rescuer.
The little girl would later be found safe.
Mills, 29, of Opa-locka, is now facing child abuse and neglect charges.
6 p.m. report:
The incident happened at around 8:30 p.m. last Thursday near Northwest 37th Avenue and 54th Street.
A woman in the vehicle with Mills and her daughter described what happened, Hialeah Police Department Detective Laurent Salazar wrote in the warrant. She called the detective after the incident, police said.
It all began, the woman said, when Cassidy “spilled shampoo on the rear seat.”
The woman said that Mills “became angry and beat (Cassidy), hitting her multiple times,” police said.
She said that Cassidy “continued to cry” during the beating, making Mills even “angrier,” the warrant states, “at which point (Mills) opened the rear passenger side door, from the inside of the vehicle, and pushed (Cassidy) out of the vehicle, causing (her) to fall on the asphalt.”
Mills then drove off, police said. They said a woman and her boyfriend who were behind Mills at a red light helped rescue the toddler from the street.
Salazar wrote that the man he interviewed said that he had his window down when he heard a woman screaming, “The baby, the baby, the baby!”
The man then saw the rear door of the Chevrolet Malibu open and Mills driving away; Cassidy was “laying face down in the asphalt,” according to the warrant.
He ran out and grabbed her and handed Cassidy to his girlfriend so he could look for wipes to clean Cassidy off, police said. The girl’s face was covered in gravel.
The man’s girlfriend told Salazar that Cassidy was “bleeding from her head and had trouble breathing,” the warrant states.
The man told police that as he searched for wipes, he noticed Mills “driving erratically” and proceeding to make a U-turn to return to the scene. The woman with Mills told police that she “took the opportunity to get out of the vehicle with her 8-year-old son” when Mills stopped.
Police said after stopping, Mills forcefully grabbed her daughter back from the man’s girlfriend. That rescuer spoke to Local 10 News on Wednesday, saying she “was just more in shock than anything” about what happened.
“I honestly just hope she’s recuperating well,” the woman, who didn’t wish to be identified, said. “I thank God that me and my boyfriend were there that night.”
The man said he saw and heard Mills “demanding for (his girlfriend) to return (Cassidy) before she yanked (her) from her arms like a ‘rag doll,’” Salazar wrote.
The witnesses were able to provide a description of Mills and a photograph of her license plate, police said.
Salazar wrote that he called Mills and “asked her to please take (her daughter) to a local hospital so she could be medically cleared.”
He wrote that Mills told him she would take Cassidy to Jackson North Medical Center in North Miami Beach.
The warrant states that Salazar went to Mills’ previous address in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood in an attempt to perform a welfare check, but was told she no longer resided there.
He said he called Mills again and she claimed she was arranging transportation to the hospital and that staff told her she had “24 hours” to take Cassidy in.
Salazar wrote that he asked Mills to provide Cassidy’s location so he could check on her; she refused. A clerk at Jackson Memorial Hospital later told him that Mills had not been admitted to any of the system’s hospitals.
He said the woman in the car with Mills at the time of the incident later told him that Mills was in Miramar. Police said they found Mills there with a friend; Salazar wrote the friend told him that Cassidy was at Mills’ Opa-locka apartment.
Police said they found her there and took her to the hospital for medical clearance.
In an interview at the Miramar Police Department, some of which was redacted from the warrant, Mills told detectives that she had pulled over and “removed” Cassidy so she could “clean the seat” and claimed she placed the toddler “next to her” while she did so, police said.
Authorities took Mills into custody and she was taken to the Broward County jail before being extradited to Miami-Dade.
Appearing in front of a judge on Wednesday, Mills was given a $7,500 bond and was ordered to stay away from her daughter.