WFSB anchor Dennis House, who was recently named one of the most influential people in Hartford, became part of the news last week when he called the cops after finding a child left unattended in a car. The father of the child was eventually arrested upon returning to the vehicle.
Touting it as “a story you saw first on channel 3,” WFSB reported on the incident last week, without mentioning House’s involvement. A reporter from Patch, though, discovered House’s name on the police report and now the veteran anchor is speaking out about what happened.
House wrote on his blog this week:
I was getting out of my car to take my son into Old Navy to buy socks when a woman with a child approached me, with a concerned look on her face. She said something along the lines of “can you help me? There is a baby all alone in the car and I’m not sure what to do.” She noted that it was getting hot outside.
House called 9-1-1 as well as a West Hartford police detective that he knows. He writes that his “instincts as a journalist then kicked in” and he called WFSB, sensing that rival stations had picked it up on their police scanners.
“Channel 30 [WVIT] is right across the street from this shopping plaza,” House writes. “[I] figured they would arrive before police and I wanted to make sure we had the story.”
[h/t The Laurel]