FAR ROCKAWAY, Queens (WABC) — The mother of a 5-year-old boy was arrested after the child was discovered outside of a laundromat in Queens without adult supervision on Tuesday, according to authorities.
An employee of the laundromat, located at 25-15 Seagirt Blvd. in Far Rockaway, called police around 5:30 a.m. to report a child wandering alone outside.
Eyewitness News obtained surveillance video of the child, who is seen running aimlessly through the laundromat parking lot.
A worker took notice of the shoeless child who looked lost.
“She tells me he’s confused, it’s sad,” said Elizabeth Jimenez, the co-worker of the woman who found the child. “It’s like he can’t understand where exactly the house was.”
Jimenez’s co-worker was just as bewildered as the child as she took him to safety inside the laundromat.
Finding out who the 5-year-old was or where his parents were would be difficult. He has autism and is non-verbal.
“She can help with the police, call to the police because the kid doesn’t talk,” Jimenez said. “And it’s difficult for you know the name or telephone number.”
The boy was taken by EMS to St John’s Episcopal Hospital for evaluation.
Police eventually received a tip on the boy’s identity and went to his house, which was only around the block from the laundromat.
That’s where they found seven other children home alone.
Police say she left her kids alone to commit a robbery in Brooklyn.
Police sources told Eyewitness News that the mother of the little boy denied having any kids when she was arrested.
“Times get hard and sometimes you get desperate but there are resources out there and nothing is worth losing your children,” said a parent named Dee Dee Mumford. “Like your children are important. Nothing is worth what you just did, what you risked. And thank God there are literal angels walking the streets and make sure he was safe, but you have to think.”
The 5-year-old boy is safe now and in the custody of ACS after being evaluated at the hospital.
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