Florida Mom Tried To Give Tot Away: Cops

VERO BEACH, FL — A 31-year-old Vero Beach woman faces charges after police say she tried to give her child away to strangers at a Kountry Kitchen restaurant.

According to the Vero Beach Police Department, officers were dispatched to the 1749 Old Dixie Highway eatery just before 9:30 a.m. June 17. When they arrived, they found a distraught couple and a 2-year-old boy.

The couple told police a woman carrying a small child approached them and tried to get them to take her son. Saying, “I can’t do it,” the woman then put the boy down on the ground, a media release from the police department said. After setting the boy down, Amber Warner, 31, is accused of getting into her truck and driving away.

Police say it didn’t take them too long to track down the truck the couple described. Officers met up with Warner at her home a short time after the boy was left at the restaurant. Warner was subsequently charged with unlawful desertion of a child, the police department said. She also faces a resisting arrest without violence charge, police said. She is accused of resisting on the way to the Indian County Jail.

Police say Warner’s 2-year-old son was in “relatively good health.” He was turned over to the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families.

Warner was released from the Indian River County Jail on June 18 in lieu of $6,000 bond, jail records indicate.

Meanwhile, another Florida mother who made headlines in recent weeks after her 1-year-old daughter was struck on the thumb by a rat snake will not face criminal charges. The Sebring woman was under investigation for possible child abuse after a video of a snake striking her child surfaced on Facebook. The woman told authorities the encounter with the snake and her baby was set up to teach the child a lesson about wildlife, the Highlands County Sheriff's Office reported when its investigation into the incident remained active.

The sheriff's office initially recommended charges in the case, but the final decision was up to prosecutors. The decision to not seek charges was announced on Tuesday.

Booking photo of Amber Warner courtesy of the Vero Beach Police Department