Couple Arrested For Pretending To Leave Daughter At Police Station

A couple that thought they'd teach their daughter a lesson learned one themselves.

Annette Gerhardt and Gerardo Santiago took their 6-year-old child to the 120th Precinct in Staten Island and left her there.

The couple claims they were just trying to teach her to behave, but police weren't so sure, so they arrested both parents for endangering the welfare of a child.

Gerhardt came into the station last week and told officers, "I can't take her anymore," authorities said. "She is uncontrollable. I'm going to leave her here. If you don't take her, I will take her to the firehouse."

The mother claims she winked at officers so they would know she was kidding.

A law enforcement source told the Staten Island Advance, "she was serious about dropping her off. She did not wink or nod, and the officers weren't in on her 'joke. "Certainly, this is not a joke."

From the Advance:

The law enforcement source said police in the precinct tried to reason with her, and even offered to call the city Administration for Children's Services on her behalf.

"She wasn't hearing any of it. She didn't want them to call ACS," the source said, adding that the woman tried to walk toward the door, and the officers had to prevent her from leaving. Santiago eventually came in and told police, "My girlfriend is bringing our daughter here to scare her and teach her a lesson, by telling her if she keeps acting up, we are going to leave her here," court papers allege.

Gerhardt insisted she tried to make it clear to police that her abandonment was all a ruse. At one point, she said, she covered her daughters ears and explicitly said she was only acting.

"There's no reason I would ever in my life tell anyone I didn't want my kid," Gerhardt said. "I was just trying to show her she has to listen to all adults, and that's it."

One of Gerhardt's friends had taken her 4-year-old child to another precinct with positive results, so Gerhardt wanted to give it a try with her daughter.

After the arrest, Gerhardt said she is considering suing the NYPD over the incident.

Comments

[Rachel Llovet]

09:53 PM on 04/21/2011

You know I heard about this post from a Family member and this actually reached ARIZONA! I am extremely disturbed to hear about how people think about this matter. I DO KNOW Miss. Gerherdt personally. And she is a VERY good mother to her daughter and WOULD NEVER do anything to endanger her Child. It has nothing to do with her PARENTING SKILLS. Before people lash out at the parent or the child, sit back and think of all the times you were so fusterated with your child and thought of a way to "correct" or "disapline" YOUR child or family member! It was just to show her daughter that "it's not a good thing to be a bad girl, because if you do you will end up here." What gets me is you rarely hear about when a child gets physically abused on the paper or the internet but you will read on something like this. This article is POOR TASTE and should have never been written. Now when this news article has something interesting and TRUE to read then I will read it other than that, I frown on the reporter and to the Police Department for deformation of Charector! Annette I pray for you!

[Nicole Dixson]

11:57 PM on 02/27/2011

These people need some parenting classes.

[FilmCriticOne]

10:58 PM on 02/27/2011

Maybe there should be private companies that LOOK like police precints, and charge parents to scare the bejesus out of their kids.

Let private industry do it, they will do it much better and cheaper.

[ilovevegas]

11:45 PM on 02/25/2011

Poor kid, well I hope mom knows her daughter won't trust her and she has caused alot of anxiety for the child! Treating children like that is barbaric and causes more problems, not less. That mother may not have realized what a traumatic thing she has put her child through and I hope she has to take some parenting classes and social workers at her door on a regular check of the childs welfare. Such a bone headed thing to do!

[knosiswar]

05:00 PM on 02/25/2011

the video will tell the tale

[SAVEME]

10:47 AM on 02/25/2011

It sounds like the parents were the ones out of control. The police should have shoved a consent form in front of the parents and asked them to sign it. The parents were wrong. Once when I was 6 my mother was fed up with us and said she was leaving and never coming back. She walked out the door and went down the street. I remember being terrified and screaming for her to come back. When she came back she yelled at me for believing she would really do it. She was never a really good mother. Parents don't do just one crazy thing. These parents are weird in other ways too. The child is acting out with bad behavior. There needs to be some investigating.

[Ledeen Halloran]

07:34 AM on 02/25/2011

Arresting the parents was ridiculous!
Where does it say the government should be making so many decisions on how we parent our own children. Sure if they actually had abandoned their child then yes punish the parents, but they were not doing that, and since when have we seen the police arrest criminals when the even INTEND to commit a crime. How many people are locked up for saying they are going to commit a crime (with the exception of terrorism) that simply doesn't happen, so why is it now happening in the social services arena!

The government has taken over every aspect of our lives. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

[LonosCurse]

01:26 PM on 02/25/2011

These parents came to them. This anti-government stuff is tiresome. Enough is enough indeed. Get a new meme.

[Ledeen Halloran]

02:32 PM on 02/25/2011

when the government is shrunk back down to what it was intended to be then we will all stop complaining. But in every area they have stepped way over the line.

[nycagnes]

11:24 PM on 02/24/2011

These people need to learn some parenting skills.

[LonosCurse]

02:36 PM on 02/25/2011

Or birth control.

[AntonioVTorres]

11:11 PM on 02/24/2011

I think the cops were right. The idea of leaving a small child in the incapable hands of police is ridiculous. Why would anyone do that? The police are only good for one thing - arrests, merited and unmerited! They are not going to look after a child. They might arrest the child. But, since the parents were nearby, they arrested the parents. Someone had to be arrested. The idea that police would actually do something to help a mother reign in her daughter is nonsense. That's the mistake she made. She would have been better off leaving the child with a pedophile or a crackhead than a police officer.

[A-Casual-Observer]

10:04 PM on 02/24/2011

How is this little girl going to perceive the police now - as people that will hurt her?

[ptrgamb]

09:05 PM on 02/24/2011

Okay assuming all this is true, this mom is some piece of work. It doesn't matter if she thinks it was a ruse. It traumatizes the kid and wastes the time of police officers. There are probably a lot of people on Staten Island who would gladly take in a six-year-old while the mother does time. And heck, I'm "soft on crime."

[Evie Mercado]

05:32 PM on 02/24/2011

I've gotten pretty mad at my kids over the years. But abandonment is not something I would ever want my children to feel from me. They know my love is unconditional. And if they piss me off...they lose stuff until it's earned back with good behavior. When you get mad, step outside, don't belittle, hit or pull stupid stunts like these parents did.

[Tim Ackerman]

05:32 PM on 02/24/2011

I don't pay taxes so that police officers (who have a serious job to do) can "playact" at their job site for parents who can't deal with their six year old. It is a frivolous use of police attention and these so called "parents" pushed their little act until they got the proper form of police attention. Now they want to sue the police? They should be sued for distracting public employees from their real jobs. Then they should get some psychological help for their real job which is being a parent.

[jennysez]

04:14 PM on 02/24/2011

Should've brought the kid to a convent like my mom did, the nuns were more than happy to let me stay. Granted, I was a student at the local parish school, so they knew me, but still, nothing drives home the point of being grounded like living a nun's cell and doing their work. The longest, quietest weekend i ever spent as a teenager. Stopped sneaking out after that too.

[Marcilliane M Basso]

05:06 PM on 02/24/2011

My whole 8th grade class had o do that on a saturday and it did make us behave afterwords!

[bgofca]

04:10 PM on 02/24/2011

even if the plan was how they stated, they are horrible parents and the child should be removed from their care permantly and they should be jailed.