Man charged after leaving child at Port Orchard hotel, girl tests positive for fentanyl
A 31-year-old man has been accused of leaving his daughter unattended in a Port Orchard hotel room that smelled of burnt fentanyl when investigators arrived on Tuesday, according to court documents, which note that the father was found to be in possession of drugs.
The child's grandparents took custody of the girl and took her to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma to be evaluated, and a social worker later reported that the girl had tested positive for fentanyl, according to court documents. Port Orchard Police Chief Matt Brown told the Kitsap Sun Thursday that the girl had been released from the hospital.
The girl's father, Jason Lynn Thompson, was charged with a count of second-degree abandonment of a dependent person, a felony, and a count of reckless endangerment, a gross misdemeanor, in Kitsap County Superior Court on Thursday. In an initial court appearance, Thompson pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his bail was set at $90,000. Records indicate that he bailed out of the Kitsap County Jail on Friday.
"Based upon my investigation, Thompson recklessly left his 8-year-old child alone and unattended in a hotel room for several hours, while in the presence of dangerous narcotics which could cause substantial harm to her if she were to have exposed herself to it," a Port Orchard police officer wrote in a report, noting that the child had been left in a room where fentanyl had recently been smoked, exposing her to noxious fumes that gave the officer and a police sergeant headaches. "Thompson also possessed several blue pills, suspected fentanyl, and empty pill capsules, which are consistent with narcotic packaging for distribution."
Police were initially called to the Stellar Motel on Bethel Avenue at about 6 p.m. on Tuesday about a possible instance of child neglect after the hotel manager reported that an 8-year-old girl was in a room by herself and was talking to hotel staff through a window.
Police arrived along with the girl's father, and he opened the door and walked in, the officer wrote. The sergeant observed Thompson stuffing something under a pillow, and when questioned, the man reported that it was a box of "weed stuff." He was asked if he was hiding a gun, and he responded no and pulled back a pillow, revealing several pieces of foil with burn marks on them, which was indicative of drug use, the officer wrote.
Thompson said that his sister was supposed to be watching the girl. The sergeant was unable to contact her on the number Thompson provided.
He was questioned about the box containing marijuana and the foil, and he reported that the foil was from his sister, "because it was not there earlier," the officer wrote. "Thompson advised that he knew the dangers of children being around narcotics."
Police recognized that there was an odor of burnt fentanyl in the room.
The officer wrote that she was approached by the sergeant and notified that "no one but Thompson was seen coming or going from the hotel room. This would suggest that (the sister) was never at the hotel room and Thompson knowingly left (the girl) in the room alone for an extended period of time, with Thompson's 'weed stuff.'"
Thompson said that the box was his and said it contained a prescription bottle and some dab, a concentrated form of cannabis. The officer wrote that a bag containing white powdery chunks and a bag of blue pills were also found in the box, and Thompson reported that the pills were "blues," a common name for pills containing fentanyl.
The man was arrested and booked into the Kitsap County Jail.
Thompson has a pair of pending cases in Kitsap County Superior Court, one for a domestic violence incident in November 2022 and the other for a theft from a construction site in East Bremerton in October 2021. Court records indicate that Thompson's bail was set at $250,000 in the 2022 matter, which brought second-degree assault and unlawful imprisonment charges, and that he bailed out of jail in February.
When he was arrested in November 2022, Thompson told Kitsap County sheriff's investigators that he was addicted to opioids and was found to be in possession of what he said he was fentanyl powder, as well as a bag of nearly 100 blue pills suspected to contain fentanyl, according to court documents.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Washington man charged after leaving child in hotel room with drugs
