A Pennsylvania woman is accused of endangering her daughter by driving in a Dollar General parking lot with the girl on the hood and trunk of her car.
Gloria Anna Hoffman, 32, was arrested Tuesday in Adams Township and charged with two counts each of endangering the welfare of a child and harassment, according to the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown. She was booked into the Cambria County Prison, where she remained Wednesday evening.
The Tribune-Democrat reported that an off-duty East Conemaugh police officer was in the parking lot of a nearby high school Tuesday afternoon when he spotted a Dodge Neon traveling in the Dollar General parking lot with a child on the hood. The officer went to the store and ordered the driver, later identified as Hoffman, to stop the car.
The man called Adams Township police officers to the scene, where Hoffman told the investigators that her daughter was unhappy because she was not allowed to buy a bottle of Gatorade, the newspaper reported. She said the girl climbed onto the hood of the car in protest.
A criminal complaint states that Hoffman told the officers she "backed out of the parking spot, moved forward and then pulled back into the parking spot while the juvenile was on the hood," the newspaper said.
Hoffman also drove forward again after her daughter jumped onto the trunk of the car, police said.
The Tribune-Democrat reported that Hoffman told police she had taken Xanax and Topamax, a migraine medication, earlier that day. Blood was taken from her at a local hospital for a toxicology test.
Adams Township is located about 25 miles north of Pittsburgh.
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