A Buford woman is facing charges after allegedly telling her 5-year-old son to hide under a towel on the floor of her car and leaving him alone while she shopped at a Covington Kmart, police said.

Mary Amber Moore, 32, faces charges of contributing to the deprivation of a minor, obstructing a law enforcement officer and tampering with evidence in connection with the incident that happened Saturday night at a Covington Kmart.

According to a Covington Police Department incident report, a passerby contacted 911 after seeing the crying child alone in the car with the windows up.

Officers found the boy in the unlocked car “sitting on the floor of the back seat of the car, sweating and holding a towel.”

“The car the juvenile was in was sitting in direct sunlight in the middle of the parking lot, without shade on an 89-degree day,” the police incident report said.

The boy said his mother told him “to stay in the car and stay on the floor with the towel covering (him), so as not to be seen,” according to police.

Officers went inside Kmart and found Moore. She was arrested for allegedly leaving the child and for ingesting prescription pills officers found in the car that Moore told police did not belong to her.

The boy was taken to police headquarters until a relative could come for him.

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