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Toddler found wandering alone with pot pipe

TACOMA, Wash. — Police arrested a mother and her boyfriend Thursday after her 2-year-old son was found wandering by himself with a pot pipe and knife blade in his hands.

Friday, a judge set a $150,000 bail for both Ann Lee Rogers and Julio Aguilar-Salazar. The Pierce County prosecutor charged them with child abandonment.

KIRO 7 tracked down the neighbor who found the toddler.

Marcella Thompson said Thursday at 10:15 a.m., her son first spotted the boy, so she went outside to look for him.

Thompson said, “The little boy had a weed pipe in his hand and had this thing that has a corkscrew to them, and little small knife connected to it? He had that in his hand.”

Charging documents state: “He carried a glass marijuana-type pipe and butane lighter, with a bottle opener, corkscrew, and knife blade.”

She said she picked up the 2-year-old boy, who clung to Thompson.

Thompson said she found the boy’s 7-year-old sister, who said she was in charge of him and their 1-year-old brother.

When asked where her mother was, the girl said she had gone to the store.

“I took him inside my apartment, gave him some juice, gave him some cereal out of the cereal box. I didn't know what to do because it's not my kid,” Thompson said.

She called the apartment manager, who alerted police.

Thompson said by about 11:30, the boy’s mother returned.

“No emotions. None at all. She was getting arrested, just no emotion at all,” Thompson said.

KIRO 7 had the only camera in the courtroom Friday as Rogers and Aguilar-Salazar appeared before a judge.

Rogers’ sister told KIRO 7 not to report the story. She did not want to comment on the case.

Charging documents stated there was already an open case of neglect and abuse involving Rogers.

The three children were taken into protective custody.