BOULDER POLICE: WOMAN SMOKED POT WITH INFANT IN CAR, FACES CHILD-ABUSE
CHARGE

A homeless woman from Denver faces child abuse and drug charges after
Boulder police stopped her in the Alfalfa's Market parking lot and
noticed an odor of marijuana inside her vehicle while her baby was in
the back seat.

Officers had been called to the grocery store at 909 Arapahoe Ave.
around 9:45 p.m. Friday on a report of an unrelated assault, according
to a police report, and they noticed a car backing out of a space with
fogged-up windows.

An officer yelled for the driver to stop and roll down the windows,
and the woman -- later identified as Caitlin Rose Blakeslee, 20 --
complied, according to the report. She had two male passengers -- one
in the front and one in the back -- along with the infant, police reported.

"I also immediately observed a strong odor of marijuana coming from
the car," Boulder police Officer Beth McNalley wrote in her report.

Blakeslee had slow and slurred speech, her tongue had blisters and
greenish residue on it, and her eyes were bloodshot, according to the
report. She initially denied smoking marijuana, but later admitted to
having smoked about a half hour earlier outside the vehicle and away
from the baby.

At first, Blakeslee, said she had a medical marijuana license, but
didn't have her card on her. She later said she had applied for one,
but still had not received it, according to police. She didn't have
papers showing she had applied for a medical marijuana license, police
reported, and she told the officers that, "Pot is not a drug ... it's
medicine ... it's just a plant."

Police reported that Blakeslee giggled the whole time they spoke with
her and that she told them, "I am Buddhist, and I feel I am being
attacked. Marijuana is a plant and not a drug ... I smoke it for the
pain of taking the government's chemicals."

Her two passengers -- identified as Michael Hunter and Eli Josephs --
said they didn't have medical marijuana licenses and turned over two
pipes and two containers filled with marijuana, police reported. They
were not arrested.

Blakeslee, who said she was in the parking lot to use the Boulder
Public Library's free WiFi, was booked in to the Boulder County Jail
at 3:52 a.m. on suspicion of child abuse, possession of marijuana,
driving under the influence of drugs and operating an uninsured vehicle.

She gave police the names of her parents, who live in Nederland, and
said they would come pick up the baby. Officer McNalley took the child
back to the Boulder Police Department, where she noticed a small
bruise on the infant's forehead, according to the report.

When Blakeslee's parents arrived at the police department, they said
"they have been disappointed with the situation Caitlin was in, and
the choices she was making."

"They said they were more than happy to care for (the infant) as long
as it would take," McNalley wrote.

The child's grandparents said they were pleased the police were going
to notify the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services
about the situation, but said they "adamantly" believed that their
daughter didn't cause the bruise on the child's head, according to the
report.

When a Camera reporter called the phone number that Blakeslee gave
police, her mother answered and refused to comment.