A mother and father locked their two young children inside a car while they went perused the aisles of an Aldi in Smyrna last week, according to police.
The temperature inside the car rose above 120 degrees and authorities had to pull the clammy children out after they’d been locked in the vehicle for an extended period of time, an arrest report indicated.
Their parents, Geetha Lakshmi Dhananjayan and Jayachandran Pallavarajan, 37, were both charged with a misdemeanor count of reckless conduct following the ordeal, court records indicate.
The incident unfolded the evening of May 28 at an Aldi at the Cumberland Crossing shopping center in the 2500 block of Spring Road.
According to an arrest warrant, the Smyrna couple left their children unattended in a Nissan Altima for at least 20 minutes. They turned the vehicle off and rolled up all four windows.
The temperature outside at the time was 82 degrees, police said.
Jayachandran told Channel 2 Action News he and his wife left their 9-year-old son inside with their 3-year-old daughter, who was asleep. The father said he turned the engine off because the car was cold when they parked at the grocery store.
Jayachandran told the news station he left his and his wife’s phone with his son in case he got hot inside the car. He insisted the couple did nothing wrong, Channel 2 reported.
“We didn’t do anything intentionally; we don’t want to hurt our child,” Jayachandran said.
A store employee told Channel 2 that customers notified Aldi workers about the children locked in the car.
They were “sweating profusely” when Smyrna Fire Department crews arrived and used an unlock kit to open the car doors, the warrant stated.
“Even after all four doors were left open for twenty minutes, (police) used an Infrared thermometer gun on the inside of the vehicle which indicated a temperature of 123 degrees Fahrenheit,” the warrant indicated.
Online booking records show Dhananjayan was taken into custody at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center on Tuesday and later released on $1,000 bond. Pallavarajan was arrested a day later and released on the same bail amount.
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