The caregivers of a 6-year-old, 37-pound Florida boy are facing child neglect charges after he showed up at school with bed bugs crawling in his hair and packed lunch on multiple occasions.
According to NWF Daily News, Helena P. Jones, 54, and James Claremont Jones, 59, were arrested Thursday after a child in their care had to be sent home from school on a special bus after coming to school with live bed bugs and several bites on his body.
Deputies reported that the 6-year-old weighed only 37 pounds, was not potty-trained, often came to school in a soiled diaper and was taking medication that affected his ability to stand or walk. School officials had been removing bed bugs from the child and documenting the occurrences for over a year, and even made special accommodations for the child that took up an hour of his school day. The child took a special bus to school, and when he arrived he was taken “into a private room to be examined and then given a change of clothes,” according to NWF Daily News.
Documented incidents involving the child have taken place since February 2015, and led to the investigation and condemnation of the couple’s home at 9405 Clarence St. in Panama City Beach after it was deemed a public hazard. The couple allegedly set up a tent in the front yard following the ruling.
The arrests were not made solely due to the bed bug incidents, but as a result of several concerns that deputies had about the child’s well-being.
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