Why are you outside by yourself? Wednesday, October 30th, 2024, Chilikothy, Ohio. Police were patrolling Sherman Park around 1:00 a.m. when they found a 5-year-old boy wandering alone and crying. According to reports, the child appeared visibly distressed and was not under any adult supervision. What was the child doing alone in the middle of the night? Where were the adults responsible for his care? Something was clearly wrong and officers needed to do everything they could to bring the child home safely and understand what had happened. I'm Tyler and this is your daily dose of crime. I'm Officer McCoy with the police department. You okay? Where you live? Come here, buddy. I can't hear you. 603. Huh? 603. 603. Why are you outside by yourself? cuz I'm looking for my mom. Looking for your mom? Okay. [Music] All right, buddy. You know where your mommy usually goes? You want to sit in the front seat? I can sit on my couch. You want to sit on your couch? Does your mommy work at night usually? No. Does she have any friends here? Do you know where her friend's house is? No. Where's it at? One's over there. Do you know the numbers? Is it you say one of this one here? 601. Yeah. And then that one right there. They're friends. Okay. What's your mommy's name? Hey, buddy. This is my partner, Officer Scrack. He's a real cool guy. He's going to hang out with you for just a second. Okay. I'll be right back. Not his name yet. Hey, buddy. How are you? Can you say your mommy's name is Shaunie? Che. Cheyenne. Okay, buddy. I'll be right back. Okay. You hang out with this this officer. He's Mr. Sprag. Looking for your mom. Did she say where she was going? No, cuz the child through tears said that he didn't know how to get home. He told officers he had left the house trying to find his mother. Officers then spoke patiently with the boy, doing their best to gather any useful information that could help to locate his mother. The situation was clearly upsetting and there was no mention of a father while it appeared that the child had been left alone. Still, nobody knew for sure how long he had been outside. Hey buddy, it's a little cold. Why don't you let me show you the police car and then your mommy's coming, so I'll get you right to her as soon as she gets here. Is that cool? Let's wait here for a second. Who's Courtney? Courtney Elliot. Okay. Where were you? I was at the bar. She was supposed to watch him talk you out. Okay. Well, she's not and she didn't at all. Okay. So, this is a real problem because your 5-year-old son's standing on the corner of Sherman Park. Okay, I understand that for sure. Right. So, somebody needs to take ownership of this right now and I need to have serious conversation with him cuz that is endangering of a child. I understand that for sure. I am upset. You need to go give me your babysitter now. Go get it for me now. I take him with me. Can I carry him with me? I need to speak with your babysitter. But, can I grab him and carry him with me? That's fine with me. I don't care. That's your son, right? Yeah, of course. Is she in one of these apartments? Okay. I want to knock and talk to her here. You can step back a little bit. This where she lives. Yeah. I would like to talk to her first, please. You just want to go back, please. After a few minutes, officers were able to contact the boy's mother and inform her of what had happened. The woman identified as Cheyenne Tyler had told police she had been at a bar and had left her 5-year-old son and seven-month-old baby in the care of a friend. Officers noticed obvious signs of intoxication, including slurred speech and extremely bloodshot eyes. Why would someone become so intoxicated and leave their children behind? Why trust your child to someone who clearly did not watch over him? Police department, open door. Hey, where's Courtney? this. Hey, go get her. Oh, come here. Tart, come here. I need to talk to her. 25 headquarters. Good. Ma'am, I'm attempting to make contact a babysitter, first name of Courtney at 606 Park. Hi. Are you Courtney? Yeah. All right. Come on out here. Come on out here. Close the door behind you. He can stay inside. I don't need to talk to him. You can stay in there. All right. You can stay in there. Okay. So, have you are you supposed to be baby babysitting anybody right now? Uh, yeah. Okay. Why aren't you? Um, she told me to go check on him and come back. When was that? Right before I went to bed, which was It's 1:15 now. Around 10. So, you weren't actually babysitting him. You were just checking on him periodically. Yeah. Is that a the deal? Oh, you're supposed to go check on him once an hour or it was like a hey, will you go check on him one time and then come back home kind of thing? From what I heard, it was check on him one time. Okay. Um, what's your date of birth? August 22nd, 1994. So, do you have any Was there any agreement at all? She text you, email you? Not that I'm aware of. I do know. So, how'd you know to go check on him one time? Uh, she told me that right before she left. Okay. Which was that 10:00? Uh, around like 9. Okay. Okay. I want you to stand right here. You're not going to go back inside yet. Okay. Until I come tell you that's all right. Okay. The friend who was supposed to watch the children told the police that she had agreed to care for the baby and had taken her to her own home. However, she said Cheyenne had specifically asked her to only check on the 5-year-old briefly and otherwise leave him alone at the house. The situation continued to get worse. It became clear that Cheyenne had knowingly left her son by himself while she went to drink at the bar. Here's here's the deal. Um, she said you asked her to go check on him at 1000 p.m. There was no Never said that. There was no agreement to watch him at all. That's never came on my life. Okay. What was the agreement to watch him? to come check on him every so often because he's sleeping. He's 5-year-old. Yes. And she's right there. I told him to come check on him every so often. Yes, I did say that for sure. Okay. She's saying you did. But I did. Yeah. It's not good enough. Does that Does that He's five. I know he's five, but he comes in and I give him a bath. I give him his medicine and he goes to bed. Maybe it wasn't. My bad. Okay. Nobody's perfect. Okay. My bad. I'm really irritated. I'm not that type of person. Okay. I'm not I'm not this type of person that like is what's going on. Listen, I understand. I understand things happen, but we're worried about the 5-year-old boy. Okay? But mine is fine cuz I'm not that type of mom. I'm not that type of person. And this happened at the wrong time. Regardless, listen, we're past that now. So, I need your social, your name. I'm giving you my social and your date of birth. Okay. For sure. Can I grab my wallet out of here so I can give you my social? That's okay. Name and date of birth. Do you want to go grab it? No. I want you to tell me your social, your name, and your date of birth. I know exactly by heart for real. Name and date of birth. I do. That's good. Spell it to me real slow. Trying to call Tyler. Listen. Listen, okay, I'm not going to deal with your attitude because technically that is endangering every child. So if you want me to charge you with that, I can't cuz you had no absolutely no plan to take care of him through the night. He's 5 years old. So if you don't want this to go a different way, I I suggest you simmer down right now. So that's why I'm mad right now. Give me your upset. 62501. That's why I'm upset. 01. Yes. 25. It's 65. How much you had to drink tonight? Cuz you just drove here and I saw you. I didn't drive here. Yes, you did. No, I didn't drive here. Okay. I for sure did not drive here. I was never behind wheels. 25 was never behind wheels at all. There's the whole ass underneath. It's understandable for sure. I get it. You're all trying to put me as a bad mom and like that is crazy. But we're not saying anything. But but you are though. Cheyenne didn't seem to understand the seriousness of the situation. She claimed that her 5-year-old son was mature and independent enough to be left alone. Officers became frustrated by her attitude and her unwillingness to admit that she had put her child in danger. How far can someone go in denying responsibility just to protect their pride? Right. Child walked out of his front door freely to the corner uh between the 500 and 600 buildings. He was by himself with no shoes on, wrapped in a blanket. Uh there's no call for service for this either. We were just patrolling the area and noticed him. He was crying on the corner and didn't know where his mom was. Uh spoke with the babysitter and the babysitter was told or notified me that she was only asked to check on the child one time at 1000 p.m. um right after the mother had left. And the mother has not contacted her regarding checking on the child again since uh she's been at the bar since around that time, 9:30, 10:00. Cheyenne, is there anybody in this area that could watch your baby tonight? Maybe a family member or something. Their dad. Where's their dad at? It's right there on Drive. So, their father. Yeah, she's attempting to do so now. Okay. So, Cheyenne, I think you're able to take care of yourself. I can definitely tell you're inebriated. Okay. You're definitely drunk. So, here's what here. Let me talk and then we're going to I'll let you talk, okay? Cuz we're going to just bring it down a level. So, I told her that you are capable of being here with your son for the night. I don't think you're so drunk to where you can't take care of yourself and your baby, okay? But what I would recommend is it's 1:00 a.m. He's 5. You need to go to bed. He needs to go to bed. Okay. It's actually 1:35. And I would like for the father to come over here. Okay. All right. Is that is that a deal? Now, I'm letting you know now CPS is going to follow up here. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Hey, Courtney. Hey, what I want you to do is she might be a little upset. Okay. So, what I want you to do is take your baby and your um boyfriend, husband, brother, whatever it is, go back in your house, shut your door, lock it. If she comes beating on your door, call us back. Okay. Because I don't know what her intentions are tonight. Okay. Yeah. Cuz you know, I she was on on the phone with me before she came and dropped her off and she was like, "Well, I do have just Sean." And I'm like, "Well, I have an extra bedroom with beds in it. He can come here." And she didn't tell me until after she dropped her off that, oh, I'm going to leave just home. Okay. Hey, Shia, come here. All right. So, I'm giving you a summon to uh court on 118, November 8th. Okay. That's next month's about about a week. Okay. For endangering children. All right. So, I think we both know I've explained plenty to you regarding why I'm going to be giving you that. Okay. You can go to the court, tell your side of the story, and it can be heard there. Okay? What what comes out of it is not my job. Okay? My job is reporting. All right? So, I'm giving you a summon. Um, it's going to be on, like I said, November 8th, 24th, next Friday. All right? Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. What I need you to do here, I want you to sign right here. Okay? That you received this. It's not saying that you're guilty. Okay? All it's saying is that I'm giving you a copy. Yeah. They're waiting for you, bro. What's up, bro? I'm walking up here now. What? Tell them I'm walking up here now. I mean, they hear you. They hear you. Tell them sergeant's walking to sergeant's walking up. Are you hearing us? I'm not about to keep doing this, bro. I'm not about to keep doing this. Keep doing what [ __ ] You just kid took it from your own house. Your own house. You dumb ass [ __ ] Keep doing what? Want to talk to you by yourself? That's okay. My grandmother. I want her to hear it, too. Okay, she can hear it, too. Then come on over. I didn't know if you wanted her to hear it or not. No, I do. Okay. I want to record it if I can, honestly. Yeah, I don't care. I have it recorded, too, but you can certainly record. Not because I'm not trying to be mad, so this is what my kids are being very upset. This is what it was like. Okay, here's what's going on. I'll tell you. We were driving by and we saw a 5-year-old standing right here by the building. Hold on. This I got to get to my kid. You don't care. No, absolutely. The quarters. Am I going to be able to get them before that happened? Go with you right now. She said they went to it was already called service and they said it's fine. So So I'm not going to have to get custody immediately. It's not going to be allowed to get custody immediately. That's you get to pull it pile up. Okay. Get all services tomorrow. Should I call services and not that bad? So this kid doesn't need you saying. Cheyenne was advised of the legal process ahead. The child's father was contacted and agreed to take custody. When the father arrived, officers explained the situation. He took both his 5-year-old son and seven-month-old daughter into his care to ensure that they were safe, and this would raise a serious question. Why would Cheyenne leave the children with a friend instead of their father? Here, I got it. I'll tell her it's all right. I told her not to answer door for nobody. He's good to have her. Okay. He's going to take he's going to take both babies tonight. All right. Thank you, Courtney. Is this like a all the time thing or this a continuous thing? This this I'm sorry. This happen all the time. Thank you guys for keeping her up for this. He's asking you a question. This ever happens again. I'm going to give you guys my number. Just call my phone because this is ridiculous. Come here. Oh my lord, you are so cute. I just had my first daughter. Okay, you guys think I thought there you guys go ahead and lock up. Okay. All right. Have a good night. Sorry. How are you, ma'am? Hey, you're right. You come on out here, buddy. Don't get so handy. Get her. She's No. Hey, we're not ripping. I'm not all my [ __ ] baby. Hey, we're not going to fight over his baby. Stop. I'm not fighting my baby. Let go of him. Let go of her. Let go of him. We already agreed to a change in custody. Get off of him. Mom, where's my pain? Just hang out for a second. Okay. If you can wait in the car, that'd be great. I don't think she You don't care to wait in front. I talk to you briefly. Get out of here. Where are you guys? Parked right here on the side. Right behind you. Okay. Step up there. Yeah, that'd be that'd be great. Hold on. Hey, hold on. Come here. Under. You're going to be placed under arrest. Uh, disorderly tops. Okay. Put your hands together like you're praying. You put my phone for me for it falls. You want to take it with you? No. You got to find it. You want it for me, too? You grab it before it falls. Yeah, we'll get it. We'll still All right. All right, I'm going to let just out of respect for you, I'm going to let your kids get in their car and then I'm going to walk you out. Okay. I don't want your kids seeing all this. You got my phone, right? Your what? Your phone? Let's go. Okay. We all right? You going to walk out with me? Not be dumb. All right, let's go. Well, we're going to lock it. I don't know how you're going to get back in. I guess I can't. You want us to lock in now? Okay. Oh, yeah. There's no bottom line. All right. Why am I getting arrested for disorderly conduct by inops? Okay. We don't believe that you are able to take care of yourself because I am. I believe you drove here. I promise I am. I will go to sleep, bro. Like, I'm not talking not enough to go to sleep. Like, I promise I'm talking so like straight right now, bro. Like, I'm not. Let's just like I I swear to God, though. Hey, don't turn around on me. You're all right. Listen, Intox is 8 hours. You be out in the morning. Okay. It's only 8 hour hold. Be out in the morning. I wrote you a summon for the other thing that would actually hold you. Okay. So, you're going to be good in 8 hours. You're going to be out here. You can fight your case. I'm doing you a favor. I really am. It might not seem like it, but I am. I promise you, I'm not letting that boy watch you go in cuffs. Okay. So, you just sit right here. When Cheyenne attempted to stop the father from taking the children, officers placed her in handcuffs and informed her of the charges. Cheyenne Tyler was arrested and transported to the Ross County Jail. She faces one count of child endangerment and one count of disorderly conduct after attempting to physically confront the children's father only minutes before being detained. Depending on the details of the case and her criminal history, she could be facing jail time, probation, or court-ordered restitution.