Authorities say the dad — who was allegedly aware his son was missing from his vehicle — told them he continued making his delivers to avoid a negative star rating.
An Uber Eats driver from Altamonte Springs, Florida is now facing two charges of child neglect after he allegedly continued making deliveries despite losing track of his special needs son — who was found running naked along an interstate on-ramp. The reason? All so he could protect his delivery rating.
According to Altamonte Springs police, per Fox 35 Orlando, the nonverbal boy, who has autism, was rescued by two bystanders around 11 p.m. on Oct. 16 after he was seen wandering around the Interstate 4 entrance ramp near State Road 436, naked and alone. One of those bystanders, Jamie Cabell, stopped and chased the boy, who was just moments away from reaching the highway’s traffic lanes.
“I was running pretty fast. Anything could’ve happened in a matter of seconds because cars were zooming by,” she said, according to the outlet.
“It was like we were running a quarter-mile run, and I had to catch this kid,” said second bystander Alexandre Thomas-Brown. “I’m not going to let him go out into traffic. I have to save him.”
Police have identified the father as 35-year-old Jeremy Rouse, who allegedly admitted to carrying on with his delivery route even though he was well aware his son was no longer in the vehicle with him.
According to WKMG-TV News 6, who obtained a full arrest report, an officer also spotted the child running naked down the on-ramp as a man (later identified as Thomas-Brown) chased behind, and managed to grab a hold of the boy as police arrived at the scene. Not long after officers realized the child was nonverbal, a woman, whose name was redacted from the report, called 911 about a missing boy who matched the child’s description (the boy’s age was not disclosed in the report). The unnamed woman allegedly stated that she had been a passenger in Rouse’s car assisting with his deliveries.
Per the report, she told officers the child had been secured in the backseat during Rouse’s delivery run, but she fell asleep around 9:30 p.m. When she woke up as Rouse was concluding his deliveries, she said she noticed it was “unusually quiet” and discovered the child was no longer in the vehicle.
She claimed Rouse “appeared shocked” when she asked where the boy was, telling police he said he “thought the child had been sleeping while he picked up food orders.” He also allegedly told her he “had no idea” the child was missing. The report states that the woman agreed to meet officers at a nearby Walgreens to reunite with the boy, but Rouse didn’t go with her.
He later called police himself, allegedly saying he realized the child wasn’t in the car while “driving to the delivery destination.”
“[Rouse] admitted that instead of immediately returning to search for the child, he continued his delivery route … passing several marked patrol units,” the affidavit says, per Law&Crime. “He continued toward Winter Park to complete his delivery, despite knowing the autistic, nonverbal child was missing. Jeremy stated he did not want to negatively affect his UberEats rating.”
Per police, he said he didn’t go with the woman because he “feared being arrested due to the incident,” adding that, “if he were to be arrested, he preferred ‘to do it later.'”
Rouse was ultimately arrested without incident and now faces two counts of child abuse without great bodily harm.
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