Hungry with no food, young boy makes daring trip cross Second Avenue for mission help

Hungry with no edible food at home, an 8-year-old boy braved heavy traffic on Second Avenue to get three take-out containers of food from the Valley Rescue Mission, a Columbus police officer testified Wednesday against the boy’s parents in Recorder’s Court.

Paul Dean Crossen, 56, and Sonja Misun Price, 42, parents of the boy, are charged with one count each of first-degree child cruelty in the July 25 police call about a boy crossing the busy road that connects north Columbus and Phenix City with downtown without supervision. Public Defender Robin King argued against the stiffer charge because there was no physical or mental pain inflicted on the child and he wasn’t willfully deprived of food to sustain him.

Judge Julius Hunter agreed to reduce the felony cruelty to children first-degree charge to the lesser second degree. Although still a felony, the change reduces possible prison time from 5 to 20 years compared with 1 to 10 years, if convicted. Hunter gave Crossen and Price a $5,000 recognizance bond each and bound the charge over to Muscogee Superior Court.

Under the bond, neither can have any contact with the boy while the case is in the court. The boy has been placed in a temporary home with relatives by the Department of Family and Children Services.

Officer Haashim Hallums said police were called at 8:30 a.m. to the Second Avenue and 29th Street area about a child walking across the road with no parental supervision. After leaving the Valley Rescue Mission where he was given three containers of take-out food, the boy was followed by a passer-by to a house on Third Avenue.

Crossen told police that he had been asleep and just awoke but didn’t give the boy permission to cross the busy street. The child’s mother had given him permission the night before to go and get food.

“He had to cross Second Avenue,” the officer told the court. “If it wasn’t for the passerby, who knows what would have happened to him.”

The officer said the child doesn’t look his age. He had no shoes or socks. Inside the home, the officer said there were only three take-out containers the boy retrieved from the mission and no other edible food in the house. Some rotten bread was found in the refrigerator.

Inside the boy’s room was a dirty mattress.

Hallums said the child had been to the mission multiple times for food. “He didn’t just stumble over there,” he said.

In an interview with police, the child said , “I’m hungry,” Hallums testified. “There is no food in the house.”

Police notified DFCS about the case and learned there is a file on the child. The boy has been temporarily removed from the home in the past and returned.

This story was originally published August 1, 2018 at 12:35 PM.