WARREN, Ohio - A Warren woman has been charged with child endangering for the third time in three years after neighbors reported her son screaming as he was “hanging out” of a second-floor window.

When police arrived at the home on Sheridan Avenue Sunday afternoon, they reported finding about ten neighbors trying to convince the child to go back inside the house. Witnesses claim the mom had left about a half hour before and the child was yelling “Don’t leave me”.

As the officer opened the home’s unlocked front door, a five-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl came outside. 

No adults were inside the home, but the officer found a nine-month-old boy, who he brought outside.

The mother, 26-year-old Shayla Mims arrived while police were still there, claiming she had left only fifteen minutes earlier with another child to pick up groceries.  The investigating officer notes in the police report that wasn’t possible since he had already been on the scene for 15 or 20 minutes.

Mims was booked into the county jail on three counts of child endangering and the four children were turned over to children’s services.

This isn’t the first time Mims has been charged with child endangering. She is scheduled to appear before a judge in Warren Municipal court later this week on two child-endangering counts that were filed last month after her two children, ages 2 and 5, were seen wandering along the 1400 block of Elm Road NE. The police report notes that Elm Road is a four-lane highway.

When they were about a third of a mile from their home, someone brought the girls into a convenience store and called the police.

Mims, who noticed that her children had left the yard, called 911 and learned that the girls were at the store.  The mom picked up her daughters before the officers arrived at the store.

In May 2021, Liberty Police were called to investigate a report that Mims’ then three-year-old boy was screaming from the third-floor balcony of an apartment.

An officer found only the crying toddler inside the apartment, and contacted Mims, by phone.

Mims told police that she left the child sleeping to go to a store for a minute.  The police report says that nearly a full hour had passed since the child was left alone.

Police say Mims came home with a car full of groceries and three other children.  She told the officer that there wasn’t enough room in the vehicle to take the boy shopping, so left him at home.

Mims was initially charged with child endangering but pleaded "no contest" to disorderly conduct and was fined $100.