MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Miami Beach police shared a photo Thursday of one of the department’s officers holding a 2-year-old police found wandering alone and crying after a good Samaritan saw the girl wandering alone along a South Beach building.
Authorities said they would later find three more children in a unit in the building, located at 1446 Ocean Drive.
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Their parents, who brought the family from Baltimore, were out partying at a nearby strip club, an arrest report states. Police arrested both on Sept. 10 on four child neglect charges.
According to police, parents Daryl Lamont Lentz and Ciera Hurd came to South Beach from Baltimore to celebrate the former’s 40th birthday on Sept. 9.
Hurd, 36, told police that Lentz asked her to go clubbing with him, so they left their children alone in the rented room with the door unlocked, while they went to Club Madonna at 1527 Washington Ave. where they “engaged in festivities with employees” at the strip club.
A good Samaritan noticed the 2-year-old wandering in a gated courtyard area, crying for her mother and called police, the report states.
Officers arrived to find the child and then the door to the family’s unit open, authorities said.
Police said Lentz claimed that the children were alone for only 30 minutes and that he told their 12-year-old son to deadbolt the door.
However, Hurd told police that all of the children were asleep when they left to go clubbing, the report states.
Police said they determined that the children were left alone for more than three hours.
Both were taken to jail and later released on their own recognizance, records show.
They’re each scheduled to appear in Miami-Dade court on Oct. 10.