Police Arrest Woman for Biting Children at Bookbuyers

 A local mom almost "fainted" from the horrendous discovery that her children had been bitten at a downtown Mountain View bookstore by a stranger. A 46-year-old woman has been arrested, law enforcement officials confirm.

The call came into the police department at 1:02 p.m. that two children at , 317 Castro St., had been bitten. The mother, a former Mountain View resident, had gone in to use some of her store credit, she told Mountain View Patch, when her son started screaming.

"I started screaming and then she started screaming," the mother said, about her 2-year-old daughter who was bitten on the cheek. "It was the closest I ever came to fainting. I'm horrified and don't think I can ever go back in there."

At 2:30 p.m., as the family left the bookstore, Patch observed a visible bite on the right cheek of the two-month old boy, which remained a little bloody. The treated the children at the scene, according to spokeswoman Liz Wylie.

Wylie stated that after the incident inside the bookstore, the alleged suspect fled. Officers and detectives flooded the downtown area and located a woman matching the description of the suspect at at 750 Castro St.

"The woman was detained and positively identified by the mother," Wylie said.

The Filipina suspect Polly Beltramo, 46, was been arrested and booked for felony child abuse. She's listed as a Palo Alto resident.

The mother agreed to talk to Patch if she was not identified. This Patch reporter personally knows the mother and decided to wait for details from the mother's statement to the police department because the mother expressed her desire to go home.