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California Parents Arrested After Police Find Toddlers in Cage-Like Cribs

The cribs were stacked and “secured to the wall like dog crates.”

A California couple were arrested after police found baby cribs in their home modified to be used as cages. The cribs were stacked and “secured to the wall like dog crates,” authorities said Tuesday. Police said they discovered the cribs while serving a search warrant at the Northern California home, where detectives also found drugs and guns. “While serving the search warrant deputies located three guns, ammunition, evidence of a butane honey oil lab, meth, and two small boys in separate modified cribs stacked on top of each other and secured to the wall like dog crates,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. The couple may have retrofitted the cribs in an effort to keep their twin boys away from the dangerous substances in the home, according to Sheriff Tex Dowdy. “It’s my understanding that they were struggling with keeping the kids in their cribs. The kids were able to crawl out,” Dowdy told ABC News.

Police arrested the couple, Ramon Zendejas and Mercadies Williams, on weapons charges, as well as child endangerment, drug possession and manufacturing a controlled substance. The sheriff’s office has since said they are dropping the child endangerment charges. The children appeared healthy, according to Dowdy. As of late Tuesday, Williams had been released, but Zendejas remained in police custody.

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