A North Dakota woman is facing federal charges after authorities alleged she ran over one of her young children and later left another child alone on a road.
Cassandra Santos, 37, was charged on Oct. 9 with one count of assault resulting in substantial bodily injury and three counts of child neglect in Indian Country. The charges stem from a series of incidents involving her three children, according to an affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota.
The affidavit states that the first incident took place on July 6 at the Crow Hill Recreation Center on the Spirit Lake Reservation. An FBI agent wrote that Santos’ 1-year-old child was “run over” by her during a prayer service. Witnesses said her two other children were inside the car at the time.
The agent interviewed Santos, who gave “inconsistent and contradicting” accounts of whether she had been drinking that day. The baby’s grandmother and aunt later told the agent they had smelled alcohol on her on the day of the incident. Santos said she did not mean to hurt her child and that she “wished someone had been watching” her child at the time.
The toddler was taken to a hospital in Fargo, where medical staff found a fractured right femur, a crush injury, and abrasions to the left leg and foot.
About a month later, on Aug. 7, a patrol officer responded to a report of a boy alone on a road. Police found Santos’ oldest child walking along the roadside in a T-shirt and shorts, with no shoes. The boy told officers Santos had taken him to his cousin’s house, but he did not want to stay there and left to walk home.
When police located Santos, she was with a group of people who “all appeared to be under the influence.” She told officers that all her children were “safe at different houses.”
According to the affidavit, FBI agents then tried to speak with the two older children at their school, but staff said the children had been called out sick. The agent wrote that she then heard a police radio call involving Santos and went to the Fort Totten Police Department for more information.
There, she learned that Santos had been arrested after officers found her passed out on the floor of her Chevy Tahoe. Her two older children were outside the vehicle and told officers their mother was “taking a nap.” Santos was “uncooperative” with police, and a breath test registered a blood alcohol concentration of 0.196.
Officers reported finding empty alcohol containers in the Tahoe. When police spoke with the children, they reportedly said their mother “sometimes … drank every day.” Santos is being held at the Grand Forks County Jail. Her next court date was not publicly available.