Child Neglect Among His Charges
TAMPA – When Jeremy Chapman started running, after deputies pulled him over Sunday afternoon, he left something behind, they said.
His 4-month-old son.
Chapman was driving a 1996 maroon Toyota Camry near Linebaugh Avenue and Henderson Road, according to a criminal report affidavit.
This is what happened next, according to the report:
A deputy noticed that a child was in the back seat, unrestrained. He also noticed that the Toyota’s registration sticker was improperly displayed.
Deputy Matthew Canfield pulled Chapman over. Chapman, 20, showed Canfield a driver’s license, then started running, first west on Linebaugh then north on Henderson.
About a half-hour later, deputies with a tracking dog caught Chapman in a wooded area just north of the intersection on Henderson Road, said Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokesman J.D. Callaway.
He was charged with felony child neglect and resisting an officer without violence, a misdemeanor.
When he was arrested, Chapman told deputies he didn’t want to go back to jail, Callaway said.
“I can’t stop doing this stuff. I’m addicted to weed, and I can’t stop smoking it,” Chapman told deputies, according to Callaway.
The arrest was not the end of Chapman’s troubles. He was wanted on a probation violation charge in connection with grand theft, dealing in stolen property and trafficking in stolen property.
Chapman is being held at the Orient Road Jail without bail.
The child is in his mother’s custody, Callaway said.
