{"id":228827,"date":"2026-04-12T17:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/228827\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:32:08","slug":"homeless-man-sleeping-on-bench-rescues-missing-6-year-old-in-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/228827\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless man sleeping on bench rescues missing 6-year-old in Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A little boy was alone wandering a crime-riddled Miami street Wednesday night, but he was found by someone most people walk right past.<\/p>\n

Arnett Johnson says he has been sleeping on a bench for about six months after serving time in prison. He told WPLG<\/a> reporters that he was on Seventh Avenue and Seventeenth Street when he noticed something unusual.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking around for the parent, but I looked and I don\u2019t see nobody, you know what I\u2019m saying, so what is this kid doing out here seven at night?\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Johnson, sensing that something was wrong, immediately called the police and stayed with the child until officers arrived.<\/p>\n

See also: A 23-story hotel in exclusive Miami locale vanishes in seconds with implosion<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a Good Samaritan that was sleeping in the streets and called us and gave us that information,” City of Miami Police Officer Mike Vega told WPLG<\/a>, praising him. “You know, kudos to him, as we don\u2019t know what could have happened to this child if he would have remained out in the street.”<\/p>\n

Investigators say the child told them that his mom had dropped him off and left him. Police later identified her as Annie Rivera, who was subsequently arrested for child neglect.<\/p>\n

Authorities report that the boy was missing for over 12 hours, but Rivera alleged she had no idea he was gone.<\/p>\n

Johnson said that despite his circumstances, he did what he felt was right.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody would have done the same thing I did,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Children and Families is now caring for the child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A little boy was alone wandering a crime-riddled Miami street Wednesday night, but he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-228827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}