Mother leaves her eight kids at South Bend library

South Bend, IN - South Bend police officers were called to the library downtown on Main Street after 11 kids were found unattended.

After their investigation they learned that three of the kids were just friends of the group of eight that were left there at the library by their mother.

Officers said the kids were abandoned at the library around 2 p.m. Monday and left there for nearly two hours. The kids are ages 2, 3, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

The father, who I'm told is on house arrest, was not at the residence he is suppose to be staying under his court order.

The mother was no where to be found early this afternoon. Officers went to her home at 636 Monroe Circle and were not able to locate her.

Child Protective Services were called to the library to speak with the kids and investigate what was going on. At the time officials were concerned that the mother may not come back for the kids.

It's unclear how the mom was notified or if she simply came back to the library to pick them up -- but while I was there around 3:30 p.m. she was being interviewed by CPS.

I drove to the home of the mother to see if I could track down some answers to some tough questions that I had for her Monday night. When I pulled up to her home on Monroe Circle she was out front sitting in a van.

"Are you the mother of the kids that left her kids at the library today?" I asked as I walked up to the van. "I didn't leave my kids at the library," she replied.

Her name is not released tonight by police and she didn't provide me with that information while I was there.

A witness at the library said that she saw everything, "Well at first they were sitting there quietly, but then there was a couple of them getting kinda rowdy and I guess they were just getting antsy," Carol Breveard said.

A friend of the mother was also outside the apartment complex tonight and told me that she is a, "very good mother." He said that she is the one that keeps the other kids in the neighborhood in order.

He said that she simply dropped the kids off at the library because they had been bugging her to go, she didn't see anything wrong with her decision to leave them there according to him.

He said he understood some people may be upset because a couple of the kids were so young but defended that by saying that they did have a 10-year-old sibling with them.

It was never mentioned where the mother was during the nearly two hours the kids were left at the library--she declined to answer that question for me and slammed the door to the van shut and stopped speaking to me.

There were a lot of kids outside the home at 636 Monroe Circle while I was there, I was told by the friend of the mother that all of those kids were hers.

It angered some parent outside the library Monday night to think that the kids were allowed to go back home with the mother.

There is no word on if the mother will face any citations for leaving her kids at the library. I have calls into the police department to see if they are investigating further.

CPS was not able to speak about the issue per their rules of privacy.

The director of the library, Donald Napoli, declined to speak with me on camera saying it was negative publicity that the library doesn't need.

Napoli said that there is a rule at the library that those 11 and younger must have someone older with them at all times inside the library for their safety.