As security closed in, a shoplifting mom fled – without two of her kids, police say

A Florida woman took her three children, including a baby in a stroller, shoplifting Friday at a JC Penney store in a Clearwater mall, police said.

But when security approached, she left a few things behind in her dash to freedom – including two of her kids, the Clearwater Police Department reported.

Mahassen Elharady, 39, of Land O’ Lakes, Fla., used scissors to cut security tags off shoes and clothing worth $527 Friday at the store and used her 14-year-old son to conceal some of the items, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The New York Daily News.

Store security workers closed in as Elharady and her children prepared to leave, the newspaper said.

“When they tried to stop her before she left the store, that’s when she grabbed the youngest child, a baby, and ran, leaving the other two behind,” Rob Shaw of the Clearwater Police Department told WFLA. Security stopped the 14-year-old and 2-year-old boys while Elharady fled.

Shaw said police tried to call Elharady about her kids, but she hung up the phone or refused to answer. The father of the two boys eventually came to the store to pick them up. Elharady turned herself in to Clearwater police Sunday.

“A mother should not be leaving her children behind and she certainly shouldn’t be having her 14-year-old help conceal items as well,” Shaw told WFLA.

Elharady faces charges of child neglect without bodily harm, retail theft and possession of an anti-shoplifting device, according to WFTS. She denied using her children to steal, the station reported.

This story was originally published December 27, 2017 at 11:04 AM with the headline "As security closed in, a shoplifting mom fled – without two of her kids, police say."