John-Michael Dooley was arrested in Charleston on Friday after police said he left his 6-year-old daughter asleep outside a Target so he could keep his place in line for a Pokémon card release. Officers were called to the store around 2:30 a.m. after a report of an unattended child.
The girl was found alone by Charleston Police Department officers, and police said she was later placed in emergency protective custody with the South Carolina Department of Social Services. Witnesses told police that Dooley had given her a pillow and blanket before walking away sometime after 1 a.m., a detail that did not change what happened next: about an hour passed, customers grew concerned, and police were called.
Police said Dooley later admitted he had gone home and left his daughter unattended so he could keep his place in line. He was charged with unlawful conduct toward a child and is being held at the Al Cannon Detention Center. The arrest came as numerous customers camped outside the Target in West Ashley overnight for the release of the latest Pokémon Trading Card Game expansion, Mega Evolution — Delta Reign, which went on sale Friday.
That release drew people into line before dawn, but the case turned on a basic fact that had nothing to do with trading cards: a 6-year-old was left outside in public while the adult who brought her left the scene. Police said the child was unharmed. The unanswered question is why Dooley left the area at all before returning to the store, and the charging decision suggests investigators saw the answer as irrelevant to the risk they say he created.
