Bill Utterback

Tmesonline.com

| Posted: Thursday, June 30, 2011 5:21 pm

AMBRIDGE — After she allowed her 6-year-old niece to create a demolition derby in an Ambridge parking lot, an Aliquippa woman was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, according to an Ambridge police report.

The child driver struck two cars in the Ambridge Area High School lot, pushing one of them over the curb, across the sidewalk and into a car parked along Duss Avenue, according to police.

The 6-year-old girl was unhurt, and the three cars she struck were unoccupied. Police said one of the vehicles incurred “severe front and rear damage” and was towed from the scene.

Rebecca Karen Beatty, 54, of 1043 Irwin St., was also charged with reckless endangerment and permitting an unauthorized person to drive after the incident at 8:01?p.m. June 10, according to the complaint written by Sgt. Brian Jameson.

Jameson told Beatty “her decision was poor.”

Beatty told police she was collecting her niece from a dance program at the school. When she returned to the parking lot, an adjacent car had parked so close to Beatty’s car that Beatty could not enter through the driver’s side.

Beatty asked Cheyenne Beatty, her 6-year-old niece, to get behind the wheel and back the car out of the parking space, according to Jameson’s report.

“(The girl) immediately lost control,” Jameson wrote.