COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Police are continuing to investigate how a young runaway from Denver ended up in a homeless camp in Colorado Springs.
A woman found with him, who attempted to pass the boy off as her son, is now facing a slew of serious charges, including child abuse.
As 11 News first reported in June, the CSPD Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) was on a routine patrol on the morning of June 4.
“Our mission is to go out into the community and contact the homeless individuals and enforce various camping ordinances, as well as provide outreach to encourage them to use the resources that we have in the city to get them off the street,” said Sgt. Olaf Chaney, Homeless Outreach supervisor, of what HOT’s role is.
That morning, the team was checking on camps set up near a drainage ditch in the area of Garden of the Gods Road and Chestnut Street when they saw a woman doing drugs with a young teen nearby.
“As the officers dug deeper into the situation, they discovered additional narcotics and a trove of financial documents and devices, linking the woman to financial fraud involving seven victims,” the Colorado Springs Police Department said in a new social media post Monday on the incident.
While arresting the woman, police say she told them the 14-year-old boy was her son, and when asked, the boy told the officers the same. Police took him with his “mother” to a CSPD substation, where the Department of Human Services was called.
That’s when police learned all was not as it seemed.
“When the Department of Human Services (DHS) got involved, it was revealed that the woman had given a false name for the juvenile. Upon proper identification, officers discovered that the boy was a reported runaway from Denver, missing since December 2023. His family was immediately contacted, leading to a long-awaited reunion,” CSPD said.
The woman is facing felony charges of criminal possession of a financial device, and additional charges of drug possession, drug paraphernalia possession, and child abuse. She has been booked into the El Paso County Jail and has not been publicly identified at the time of this writing.
Copyright 2024 KKTV. All rights reserved.
