Florida Mom, 43, Facing Child Cruelty Rap For Using Teen Son As Hood Ornament

A Florida woman is facing a child cruelty charge for allegedly using her teenage son as a hood ornament on her Mazda, police report.

Tojuana Lowe, 43, was arrested Thursday morning after being spotted driving on State Road 434 near her Winter Springs home with her son “on top of the vehicle,” according to a police report.

After being pulled over by a cop around 7:50 AM, Lowe claimed that her son had “jumped on her vehicle to prevent her from leaving” their residence. Lowe admitted that she drove off with the juvenile on the car, saying that, “I tried to scare him.” Lowe, pictured in the adjacent mug shot, added, “I drove off with him on the car thinking he would jump off.”

Police estimate that Lowe, driving between 20 and 25 miles per hour, went about 540 yards with her child “grasping onto the hood of her vehicle.” Cops added that the state road has a “high volume of traffic flow,” and that if Lowe had gotten into an accident, her son could have been seriously injured.

Lowe “admitted to me she had knowledge it was wrong for her to drive the vehicle while her son was on the top and unsecured,” a cop reported.

Charged with felony child cruelty, Lowe was booked into the Seminole County jail, from which she was later released after posting $2000 bond. She is scheduled for a February 25 arraignment in Circuit Court.