A Medford woman faces a child endangerment charge after Arlington police allegedly found her intoxicated Wednesday in the company of a 3-year-old boy whose family had hired her to babysit.


Susan M. Devereaux, 51, was seen stumbling around Egerton Road in Arlington around 1:30 p.m. with the child in tow, and she tried to enter the wrong house on the street, police said in a statement.





“The first arriving officer noticed a strong odor of alcohol coming from her, and after a conversation, the officer learned that she was the child’s babysitter,” the statement said.


Police later reunited the boy with his mother, who lives in a different house on the street, and determined that Devereaux “consumed multiple alcoholic beverages and had taken prescription drugs earlier in the day,” according to the statement.


She was charged with reckless endangerment of a child and will be arraigned at a later date, police said. It was not known Thursday whether she had hired a lawyer.


Authorities said the boy’s family initially hired Devereaux, who is known to police, through the website Care.com, and then later by contacting and paying her directly.


“I urge everyone to take all possible extra steps you can take while screening a potential babysitter or caregiver,” Police Chief Frederick Ryan said in a statement. “A reference or a website’s background check should only be one component of a larger vetting process. Never rely solely on one reference or a single report.”





Care.com said in a separate statement that the incident was “deeply disturbing.”


“We are thankful that the child is now back with his family,” the company’s statement said. “We have proactively reached out to local authorities to assist in the investigation in any way we can. Safety is of paramount importance to Care.com and when any safety incident occurs, it hits us very hard. Our thoughts are with this family tonight.”


Ryan praised a neighbor who called police to report Devereaux’s allegedly erratic behavior.


“We commend the caller who reported this dangerous situation,” Ryan said in the police statement. “What matters most is that the young child was not harmed.”


He added in a follow-up interview: “This is classic community policing. This is in a tight-knit neighborhood, and the person that phoned in is familiar with her neighborhood police officer and felt comfortable calling it in.”


Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.