A 34-year-old Gainesville woman was arrested after leaving her young child on a Regional Transit System bus in the care of a homeless man she’d met the day before, police said.
An RTS driver called Gainesville police after she became concerned about a woman who repeatedly got on and off her bus, saying she was looking for her 2-year-old son.
Another RTS driver said he had seen the woman and an older man on the bus with a small child, but that the woman got off about 2 p.m., leaving the child with the man, an arrest report said.
Police said they found Jamie Louise Hudson in an area known for drug sales and prostitution. She initially told an officer she was on her way to pick up her child, then said she didn’t know where he was.
She later explained she’d left the child with a man she knew only as “JP,” the report said.
An officer later found the boy with a man at a gas station, who explained that Hudson had left the child with him on the bus saying she needed to go to work.
He didn’t call police because he didn’t want to get Hudson in trouble.
Upon Hudson’s arrest, police realized she had been clenching a metal pipe used to smoke crack cocaine in her hand during their entire interaction.
The Department of Children and Families took the child into their care.
GPD: Mom arrested after leaving boy, 2, on bus with homeless man
Jamie Louise Hudson, 34, was arrested on charges of possession of cannabis, possession of drug paraphernalia and child neglect.
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