OKC Mom Arrested For Leaving Child In Car While Drinking At Bar

An Oklahoma City mother was arrested after police said she left her 4-year-old son in her car to go drink at a bar.

According to police, at about 12:19 a.m. Monday, officers responded to a check welfare report at Lumpy's Bar, located at 5909 NW Expressway. A bartender called police to report that a couple was drinking in the bar and they left a child in a car in the parking lot.

Officers arrived and found the child sleeping the back seat of a vehicle. The car was unattended and no one else was in the parking lot.

Officers said they went inside the bar and located the boy's mother, 28-year-old Hayley Dawn Hampton, who was drinking a beer while sitting at the bar top. Hampton told police that she had come to the bar to pick up her boyfriend, who is not the boy's father, but some other friends convinced her to stay and have a drink. Hampton said her boyfriend has no legal rights or obligations to the child. 

Hampton told officers she had only been at the bar for about five minutes before officers arrived, and that her boyfriend told her he would stay outside and watch the child.

However, officers spoke with Hampton's boyfriend who said Hampton had been there for about 30 minutes. He said Hampton came inside to have a drink to celebrate Mother's Day. He also told police that he was going in and out of the bar every five minutes or so to check on the child.

The bartender, who called police to report the incident, said she overheard Hampton tell a friend that her child was in the car outside. She said Hampton's boyfriend went outside for about ten minutes and returned, and that Hampton knew her boyfriend was back inside. 

The bartender said she became concerned when neither Hampton nor her boyfriend went back outside to check on the child. So she went outside, located the child, and called police.

The bartender told police that Hampton had been in the bar for about an hour before officers arrived. She said Hampton consumed at least a beer and a shot.

The child was released to a family member.

Hampton was arrested and booked into the Oklahoma County Jail on a complaint of child neglect. Her boyfriend was not arrested.