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Baby found crying, sweaty in pickup truck outside Oviedo bar, manager says

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — The manager of a Seminole County bar says a baby was left in a pickup truck while the child’s parents were inside the bar.

Jayson Rivera, the general manager of the Black Hammock in Oviedo, said he was doing inventory in the cooler Sunday night. He went to his car to get a sweatshirt when he heard a crying baby.

"Late at night, I’m thinking it's a cat. You don't think you’re going to find a baby," Rivera said.

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Rivera said the windows of the pickup truck were cracked. He began knocking but no one was inside but the child.

"The baby kept crying so I opened up the back door,” Rivera said. “The baby is there sweating and crying."

Rivera said one of his regular customers was in the parking lot as well. She hopped inside the truck and picked up the baby, who was strapped into a car seat.

Rivera said he called 911 and wrote down the license plate number of the truck.

Moments after calling police, Rivera said the child’s parents came out of the bar and took off with the baby.

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"It was probably five to 10 minutes that we were holding the baby. Then the mother finally came and grabbed the baby,” Rivera said.

According to deputies, the child's mother, Andrea Gooden yelled at Rivera and told him not to contact law enforcement officers.

A short time later, Johnathon Green left the bar. Green and Gooden got into the truck and left with the child before deputies arrived.

Authorities later tracked the couple down at Green's home in Sanford.

Seminole County sheriff’s deputies said the couple was inside the bar for at least 15 minutes.

Deputies said the couple was cited, but not arrested, for leaving a child in a vehicle unattended. Deputies said more charges could be filed.

Green apologized to deputies and said he ordered two drinks but didn’t have the opportunity to drink them, deputies said.

No one was home when Channel 9 went to Green’s home on Monday.

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