A Farmingville mother who had gone to Wal-Mart with her 3-year-old son to buy a toy train was arrested when a security officer spotted her snorting heroin through a straw, Suffolk County police said yesterday.
Stacy Roe, 35, was pushing her son in a cart down an aisle at the Centereach Wal-Mart on Saturday at about 6:10 p.m. when a security officer caught her snorting the drug in a surveillance video, police said.
The security officer called Sixth Precinct police, who arrived at the scene and viewed the tape while monitoring her whereabouts through the store's security cameras. After confirming the guard's suspicions, Sixth Precinct Crime Section Officers Thomas Pryor and Kerry McGrath took Roe in for questioning, police said.
Roe admitted to snorting heroin and confessed she had a small bag of it in her wallet.
The toy train she wanted was in her cart, McGrath said yesterday.
"She was crying, more so because she couldn't buy the train for her son," McGrath said. Roe's little boy didn't realize what was going on, she said.
Police transported Roe and her son to the Sixth Precinct in Coram. The child was released to the custody of his father, and a referral was filed with state Child Protective Services. Roe was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, a misdemeanor.
She was released on $100 stationhouse bail, police said, and is scheduled to be arraigned on July 17 in First District Court.
Roe could not be reached for comment.
