The mother of a 4-year-old boy who was wandering alone Tuesday in Queens is now facing charges, police sources say.
Sources say investigators believe she left the boy alone to commit a robbery in Brooklyn.
Police sources tell CBS News New York the woman has been charged with four counts of reckless endangerment and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
Boy’s mother arrested for robbery in Brooklyn, sources say
Police sources say the mother, identified as 30-year-old Leshea Harris, was taken into custody for a robbery Monday night at an apartment on New Lots Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn.
Sources say Harris and an accomplice climbed through a fire escape window, pepper sprayed a woman inside, then held the woman up with a stun gun while they searched the apartment, making off with $50 worth of clothing. The victim of that crime went to a neighbor for help.
“The girl wanted to use my phone to call the cops,” the neighbor said. “She was making a big fuss out here … she was like ‘I live there, my stuff was there, and they’re not letting me get my stuff in there.'”
Harris was arrested shortly after, but her accomplice escaped, sources say. She was arrested again Tuesday night on the child endangerment charges.
Sources say, in addition to the boy, investigators found three other children, ages 6, 9 and 10, left unattended inside a residence.
Video shows child running down Queens sidewalk
Surveillance video shows the little boy running alone around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday on Seagirt Boulevard in Far Rockaway.
CBS News New York
Surveillance video captured the little boy running alone, lost and apparently barefoot around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday on Seagirt Boulevard in Far Rockaway.
He could be seen sprinting down the sidewalk, only to stop, look around and approach Lidia Rojas in the parking lot of the laundromat where she was heading into work.
“I asked him ‘What’s your name? Where’s your mom? Your dad?’ He didn’t tell me nothing,” Rojas said.
Rojas, a mother of three herself, said she felt protective of the child and brought him inside the laundromat to wait while she called police.
An employee of a nearby laundromat spotted the child and brought him inside to call the police.
CBS News New York
“She did the right thing, called the cops, took care of the kid until they came,” manager John Estevez said Tuesday night. “It’s very shocking that parents leave their kids on the street, don’t know where they are.”
The manager said the boy could not, or would not, say a word. Police brought him to a hospital and said he was safe and has since been identified.
The child is now in the custody of the Administration for Children’s Services.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers confidential hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or 1-888-57-PISTA (74782) for Spanish. You can also submit a tip via their website.