Woman arrested after taking toddler to jail in handcuffs

An Albuquerque mother was arrested for child abuse after police said she left a pair of toy handcuffs tightly attached to her son's leg for 24 hours. Monique Garcia, 19, and her baby boy went to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque to visit her husband on Sunday. Deputies said when she got there she asked a deputy if he had a key that would unlock some plastic handcuffs on her son's leg.

"The child's leg, foot was turning purple and losing circulation," Tommy Trujillo, Deputy Chief of Security at MDC, said. According to a criminal complaint, Garcia's friend, who was watching the child on Saturday, put the toy cuffs on the boy because he was being fussy. 24 hours later, when Garcia was at MDC for her visit, jail staff told her they did not have a key that worked on the cuffs. They advised Garcia to the hospital immediately to get her son examined.

Garcia did not go to the hospital and instead took a seat in the jail waiting room to visit her husband. "She was more concerned about getting the visit she came out here for instead of taking her child for emergency care," Trujillo said. Once deputies saw Garcia was not going to get help, she was arrested for child abuse while an ambulance came to remove the cuffs and check on the boy.

Emergency crews had to cut off the toy handcuffs, according to deputies. According to the criminal complain, Monique Garcia told police she did not call them on Saturday when she saw the cuffs on her son because, "she is not a police person". Garcia is still behind bars on a $100,000 bond.