A camper’s child was taken into protective custody on Monday after the Porter County Sheriff’s Police determined that he was unable to provide a safe environment for the child.

According to police, at 8:44 p.m. officers were dispatched to the Sand Creek Camp Ground at 1000N 350E in Jackson Township in response to a report of an intoxicated male subject who was ransacking his own trailer.

On their arrival, police said, the officers observed a window of the trailer broken and glass on its patio. They then entered the trailer after knocking and getting no response and found the camper asleep on a bed with a laceration to his right arm, police said. The “trailer was completely ransacked with broken dishes on the floor, the TV was overturned, and the fire extinguisher had been discharged.”

The officers made repeated attempts to wake the camper, who when finally roused was disoriented, police said.

Due to the camper’s “high level of intoxication and the fact that the trailer was an unsafe environment for a child to reside in,” police said, Child Protective Services was contacted. CPS authorized the placement of the camper’s child in foster care for the night, with the case to be further reviewed by a magistrate today, police said.

Posted 6/30/2009