Two children in Detroit froze to death as a result of their family having to sleep in their car. Winters in Detroit are cold, and the family’s car reportedly ran out of gas while they slept. The other children in the family are still alive, but were also taken to a hospital to be checked out.
While the family had previously been living in a home, they had evidently been sleeping in their car for a while at the time of the deaths. So far, no reason for why they’re currently living out of their car has been made public. Police are trying to gather more information before determining if the mother will face charges for her children’s deaths.
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Detroit police Captain Nathan Duda released a video statement to news outlets. He explained that the mother pulled the van the family has been sleeping in into the parking lot of the Greektown Casino around 1 a.m., per NBC News. The car ran out of gas some time after that, Duda said.
The National Weather Service reported temperatures in Detroit that night was around 12 degrees. The windchill brought the temperature to 6 degrees, NBC News reported.
Around noon, the mother, who has not been named, noticed that two of her children, ages 2 and 9, weren’t breathing. She called a family member to take one of the children to the hospital, Duda said. When she noticed the second child was not breathing, she did it again.
“And so that person conveyed both children to Children’s Hospital, where they were pronounced deceased, with the early indicator being that they froze to death,” Duda said.
Fox 2 reported that the other three children, ages 13, 8, and 4, were also taken to the hospital. They were checked and are all still alive.
Duda said that an investigation “has to happen.” The mother was detained and gave a statement, but has not been held or charged with anything.
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“I don’t think anyone really wants to think about that at the moment with the two children passed, but the reality is that the circumstances do have to be examined. We have to figure out how to go forward,” Duda said. “I just can’t imagine what the family is feeling.”
Duda urged people like the family sleeping in their car to seek other options to save themselves from a similar fate. “This was unnecessary. It didn’t have to happen this way,” he said.
“We’ll show up with all the right people to be able to offer resources, to transport, to feed, to clothe, to give that person shelter,” he added. “We do care.”
