A Wisconsin mom strapped her young son to her minivan’s roof to hold down a plastic pool the family purchased, police say.
WESH reports that Amber Schmunk, 28, has been charged with one felony count of recklessly endangering safety in connection with the September 9 incident, where she allegedly had the nine-year-old secure the pool in place on top of the minivan.
“That woman needs to think about the safety of her children,” neighbor Barbara Sellin told WITI. “To put a kid on top of the car is beyond ridiculous.”
Officers responded to a complaint of a child riding on top of a minivan while holding a plastic pool at the intersection of Hillcrest Road and Claremont Road in Saukville.
The criminal complaint states Schmunk pulled over, took her son off the van’s roof, folded the pool, and placed it inside the van before pulling into her sister’s driveway.
Schmunk told police that she had her son on the roof for “maybe 20 to 30 seconds” and thought it was fine because “her father let her do things like that when she was that age,” according to the complaint.
She allegedly told the officers that she put the pool on the roof because there was no room inside her vehicle, so “she had her (son) climb on the roof to hold it down while she drove,” the complaint states.
If convicted, Schmunk faces up to ten years behind bars. She is scheduled to appear in court November 14.