TEXARKANA, Texas — A man and a woman were arrested Monday night in East Texas after police say they left six kids (ranging in ages 6 years to 11 months) at home alone while the couple played a video at a laundry mat.
Eshaun Johnson, 23, and Marca Harris, 28, were arrested for abandoning or endangering a child and booked into the Bi-State Jail. Their bond was set at $75,000 each.
According to the Texarkana Police Department, a person made a 911 call about hearing children crying in the house and screaming for their mother.
Officers found six children alone and the parents left them while they went to a nearby laundry mat.
One of the kids asked an officer if he would open a package of hot dogs because he was hungry. One of the officers found the parents sitting at the laundry mat playing a video game with several others, police said.
"We weren't able to figure out exactly how long they'd been left there alone, but it was pretty obvious that it had been for a while," the police said in a statement.
Johnson eventually said he was the kids' stepdad, and he agreed to walking to the house.
"However, Marca Harris, indicated that she was much too busy playing her game to leave to go check on her babies at that moment," the police said its statement. "Unbelievable."
Child Protective Services were notified, and the children were released to a relative Monday night.
