A Louisiana mother of at least 11 children is facing charges of cruelty after she flipped her SUV several times during an accident on Sunday night.
What are the details?
The woman, 34-year-old Leticia Brothers, was driving the vehicle, which was carrying 11 of her children ranging in age from 4 to 16 years old, when it crashed, flipping “repeatedly,” Newsweek reported.
At least one of Brothers’ children was ejected from the over-packed vehicle and airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment. She and the other 10 children were also injured, but all are expected to recover.
Police issued a summons at the hospital. Authorities said that none of the SUV’s occupants was wearing a seatbelt and that Brothers was driving an uninsured vehicle with no personal insurance coverage. Police arrested her and charged her with 11 counts of cruelty to juveniles and careless operation, among other related charges
Of the shocking scene, Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran said, “It’s a terrible accident. I mean, a vehicle flipped over and you have children laying everywhere. It’s a terrible thing to pull up on.”
He later added that he believed it was a miracle none of the children was killed as a result of the reckless accident.
“We’re lucky there wasn’t a fatality of a child,” he said. “Two of the children were sitting in front, one was in the passenger seat behind the driver, four were in the next seat and four were in the hatchback, which didn’t have a window, just plastic. The vehicle didn’t even have a back glass in it, it just had a plastic bag over that back window. And after the wreck, that’s how they escaped from the vehicle, through knocking that plastic bag out and trying to climb out.”
Anything else?
In 2015, authorities charged Brothers with cruelty to juveniles, domestic abuse, criminal neglect of family, and encouragement of child delinquency after it was found that she and nine of her children were sleeping in one room and on the floor of a home with no beds.