Feb 16, 2017 2 min read

A Langeloth couple was charged Wednesday by Smith Township police with endangering the welfare of children after another motorist reportedly spotted them driving in a vehicle with a young boy who was not properly restrained in a child safety seat.

Michael Anthony Porter Sr., 54, and Brandi Lynn Porter, 37, both of 101 Eleanor St., are accused of not securing the 4-year-old boy on Sunday.

A township woman called police and told them she was driving on Eleanor Street when a car went through a stop sign and pulled out in front of her. When the car, later determined by police to have been driven by Michael Porter, stopped at a second stop sign, the witness said she saw a young boy sitting on a woman’s lap.

The witness told police that the driver took the boy from the lap of the woman, later identified by police as Brandi Porter, and threw him toward the back seat, but that the child instead landed on the center console. She said the driver appeared to be yelling at his passenger and then grabbed the boy once more, this time throwing him into the back seat of the car.

The charges will be sent by summons from the office of District Judge Gary Havelka. They are scheduled for an April 6 preliminary hearing before Havelka.