John Jefferson
Background: A Sylvan Learning Center in Brookfield, Wisc. (Google Maps). Inset: Flor Escalante (Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department).
A Wisconsin mom is out on bail after being arrested by police for kicking her 12-year-old son out of her car and making him walk almost two miles along a busy highway.
Flor Escalante was charged with felony child abandonment and a misdemeanor charge of neglecting a child on Nov. 7. She was arrested at a Sylvan Learning Center where she originally intended to bring her son before the two had an argument on the ride over. The fight, which was over the boy’s grades, ended when Escalante pulled the car over onto the shoulder of the I-94 highway, forced her son to get out of the car, and walk the rest of the way to the tutoring center.
Milwaukee Fox affiliate WITI reported on police scanner audio that described several calls from motorists about “a 10- or 12-year-old on the shoulder crying,” and “He doesn’t know his mom or dad’s name. We’re going to be setting up a post.” By the time police reached the boy, it was dark outside with rush hour traffic. The temperature had also dropped to about 50 degrees; the boy was also not dressed for the weather and did not have a phone to call for help.
The boy told police that he was walking to the Sylvan Learning Center where his mother was waiting. They brought the boy there, then they arrested Escalante and brought her to the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department, where she was questioned.
According to the criminal complaint, Escalante told police that her son “didn’t appreciate everything [she] did for him,” saying that she worked “several jobs” while making the time to help him with his schoolwork and the extra help he needed. She then told him to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way “so he can understand what labor is.”
Escalante told police that when she left her son on the side of the highway, the traffic was “going slower,” and when she turned around to try and find her son, she couldn’t find him, but decided not to call law enforcement to find him because she “just assumed that officers would bring him back to her.”
The complaint also stated that while Escalante was “visibly upset about the situation,” she “did not seem to grasp the recklessness and negligent nature of her actions.” She was released on $500 bail.
WITI reported that the child was staying with other family members while Escalante “takes a step back and gets the help she needs.”
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