Woman Charged After Locking Child in Van

A Burbank mother was charged Thursday with endangering her 2-year-old daughter by locking the child in a van in a Van Nuys parking lot as the temperature approached 95 degrees.

Kaori Cook, 30, could be sentenced to up to a year in County Jail if convicted of leaving her daughter Tay in the vehicle for about 30 minutes because she didn’t want to awaken her, the prosecutor said.

“People are warned routinely to not even leave their pets in their cars, so I can’t even imagine why a person would leave a child in a car in that kind of heat,” said Deputy City Atty. Laura Van Eyk.

The incident happened June 19 at the Costco store in Van Nuys. Police were called after a passerby heard crying from inside the van and could not locate the owner of the vehicle, Van Eyk said.

Temperatures inside a locked car on a hot day can reach 160 degrees in about 10 minutes, even if the windows are not rolled up all the way, according to the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which strongly warns pet owners against leaving dogs in locked cars.

While that extreme heat can cause brain damage and even death, Tay Cook appeared to be healthy after the mother returned from the store, according to a police report.

In addition to the heat in the van, the mother also endangered the child by leaving her alone in a public place, Van Eyk said. “There’s no reason to think that a 2-year-old couldn’t unlock the door, get out and just start wandering the streets,” she said.

Kaori Cook told police that she planned to make a fast visit to the store and did not want to awaken her child, Van Eyk said. But she was delayed in the checkout line and the infant was trapped in the van for about half an hour.

Cook was not arrested at the time, but police reported the incident to the city attorney’s office, which filed the misdemeanor charge Thursday.

Van Eyk said Cook still has custody of Tay and of an 11-month-old girl she brought into the store. Cook is scheduled to be arraigned in Van Nuys Municipal Court on July 28.

Earlier this year, Van Eyk successfully prosecuted another woman who left her daughter in a locked station wagon in the parking lot of a Costco store in Canoga Park on Jan. 9.