A mother was arrested after police found her children alone outside a Tempe home early Sunday morning, according to court documents.
Tiffany Johnson faces four counts of child abuse after two of her children were found near Southern Avenue and Priest Drive in Tempe at 2:43 a.m.
An officer saw two children, a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old, and realized they were unattended, according to the charging documents.
The children said their mother left them and led the officer to their home, where no one answered the door.
The officer found two more children, one 5 years old and the oldest 6 years old, inside the home. The officer did not find any adults inside the home, according to documents.
The officer tried to find contact information for a guardian of the children for about 30 minutes.
About 45 minutes after the officer found the children, Johnson arrived at the home. Police say she was intoxicated and she told them had taken four shots of brown liquor -- but she wasn't sure what she had been drinking.
Johnson told police she was sorry and should not have left, but her sister and her friend persuaded her to go to the liquor store, according to the documents.
Johnson told police that she had left her children only once before, according to the documents.