A Nebraska police captain is facing formal charges after authorities say she left her 2-year-old daughter locked in a van while she went fishing with her partner, leaving the toddler screaming for help.
Mayde McGuire, 54, was cited for misdemeanor child abuse along with her partner, 49-year-old Mary Tobiassen, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office announced at the time. McGuire is a captain with the Lincoln Police Department, as Law&Crime previously reported. The two have since been formally charged with misdemeanor child abuse, according to Lincoln.
The incident unfolded on Aug. 23, when Izabella Glover and Braydon Nichols went fishing at Pawnee Lake in Lancaster County. While there, they heard a child screaming.
“It was a child in distress. It wasn’t a child just wanting to get out of something they didn’t want to do, like it was a child that was … they wanted their parents. They didn’t know what was going on,” Glover recounted to the local TV station.
The screams caught the couple’s attention, and they snapped a photo. The image shared by KOLN shows the girl in the front seat of a van with tinted windows. Glover said she did not see the girl’s hands “until she put her hands against the window.”
The toddler had apparently “crawled over” the back seats to reach the front of the vehicle, where the windows were less tinted, and began banging for help. The witnesses called 911.
By the time deputies arrived at about 4 p.m., McGuire had reportedly taken her daughter out of the vehicle. Authorities allege that McGuire, who was off duty, and Tobiassen left the girl inside the van for about 25 minutes. The vehicle was not running, its windows were up, and the outside temperature was nearing 80 degrees.
Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner stressed that even when outdoor temperatures “may not seem extreme,” the temperature inside a vehicle “can rise quickly.” He added: “Children should never be left unattended in a vehicle.”
Deputies spoke with both women. Investigators say they tested McGuire for alcohol, and “a preliminary breath test” allegedly showed a result of 0.11, above the legal limit of 0.08.
The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned in court on Wednesday.
According to a March 2023 press release from the Lincoln Police Department, McGuire joined the agency in 1998 as a patrol officer. She “consistently worked her way up the ranks” and was promoted to captain in 2011. She has also managed the department’s Emergency Communications Center and overseen its Education and Personnel Unit.