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| 7-Eleven illustration |
(Scroll down for video) A couple was arrested after their children fled their home and ran to ask people for help.
The couple faces child endangerment charges after their 5-year-old daughter ran out of their house and ran to a nearby to 7-Eleven, where she told bystanders that her father was trying to set her mother on fire.
According to police, Thomas Kimmel and Lindsey Cope of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania were fighting inside their home. The woman told police that while Kimmel held her down, his cigarette fell out of his mouth and onto her hair.
Police said that their daughter, 5-years-old, was so afraid for her mother’s life that she ran out of the house to call for help because she thought her father was trying to kill her mother.
Surveillance video showed the girl crossing the street by herself, and then it showed her into a 7-Eleven to ask people for help.
Moments later, the couple’s other children were seen running into the 7-Eleven, also asking people for help. A customer tried to calm the children before allowing one to use her cell phone to call police.
Kimmel and Cope are fine, but they were charged with child endangerment. Kimmel was also charged with assault and harassment for allegedly attacking his wife.
Cope was arrested after she was unruly and refused to relax. She vomited in the police car and on an officer, who had to restrain her, according to the police report.
The children have been taken away from their parents.
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