A Bethlehem man is in jail and facing charges after Lower Saucon Township Police say he allegedly left several children under the age of 10 alone in a parked car while he shoplifted nearly $200 worth of groceries from Giant Food Store Saturday afternoon.
In a news release issued Tuesday, police said Donald Niquette, 57, of the first block of W. Garrison Street, left the children ages 7, 8 and 9 in the car while he was inside the store at 1880 Leithsville Road in the early afternoon.
When officers responded to the store for a reported retail theft, police said store management told them Niquette was observed walking out of the store with a cart filled with groceries valued at $195.05 “without ever attempting to purchase the groceries.”
During a search of Niquette, police said they found “a green baggie with white residue…typical of drug packaging” on his person.
Niquette is charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, felony retail theft and child endangerment.
Following a preliminary arraignment he was committed to Northampton County Prison on the charges, police said.
So the inevitable baggie with white stuff…..three kids, age 7,8,9 left in car (realistically old enough to be left alone together), and a man who stole almost $200. worth of food, most likely to feed the kids. I am not say the law was not broken. Maybe, just maybe, this guy was the grandfather. He goes to the house, finds the kids alone, sees this “baggie of white stuff” removes it from the home, so that maybe his daughter, or son, won’t come home, find it and get high. He takes the kids, who have not eaten since the day before, when they went to school, goes to the Giant and leaves them in the car, (again realistically as a group, they are old enough to be left alone). He fill his cart, and leaves the store. Was he flustered about confronting a drug using relative? Did he leave his wallet in the car and not have his wits about him to leave the cart, get the wallet, and come back, or was he so desperate to care for these children, did not have the money and simply went in got what he needed and came out. There are all kinds of ways to think about this story, you do not have to always follow the thin blue line. I totally respect the LST police, don’t know much about the Hellertown department, but imagine they are just as vigilant. I just feel that before reporting all the smarmy details of a story, we should read what the perpetrator has to say first. It would be nice to get the follow up to this story, once the police have taken a statement.