A Fort Worth mother is demanding answers after her 5-year-old son left Rufino Mendoza Elementary School unnoticed Monday and was found crying in the street by a stranger about two blocks away. <\/p>\n
Isabel Barrera was visiting her parents in Fort Worth\u2019s Northside around 11 a.m. when she spotted the boy, Elijah, alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see a little boy in the street he’s running, crying and I think my mom instincts just kicked in,\u201d Barrera said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hugged me and I hugged him back and I was like, ‘Are you OK?’ and at that point all I could think about was he’s someone’s baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elijah was not able to say much, but Barrera noticed the name of his school on his shirt. She drove him back to Rufino Mendoza Elementary and told staff what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re like OK and everybody starts freaking out; they’re like ‘Oh my God, we didn’t even know he got out,’\u201d Barrera said.<\/p>\n
Barrera said she asked staff whether they planned to notify Elijah\u2019s parents and was told they would.<\/p>\n
But Elijah\u2019s mother, Rebeakah Alcaraz, said she was initially given a different account of what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said that he had walked out of the building but that two employees and the security guard had got to him before he was able to leave and they brought him back inside,\u201d Alcaraz said.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz said she later saw a Facebook group post from Barrera\u2019s husband and realized a stranger had actually found her son away from campus.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz and Elijah\u2019s grandmother met with school and district staff Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we’re being dismissed,\u201d Alcaraz said.<\/p>\n
In a statement to NBC 5, Fort Worth ISD said the kindergartner left campus during lunch and was safely located by a community member before being returned to school.<\/p>\n
\u201cDistrict and campus administrators have been reviewing the circumstances surrounding the incident and will take any necessary steps to strengthen existing safety protocols and procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alcaraz said the experience has left her worried about her son\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey traumatized my little boy. They traumatized me as a parent and I fear for his safety now at that school,\u201d Alcaraz said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Fort Worth mother is demanding answers after her 5-year-old son left Rufino Mendoza Elementary School unnoticed Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-423411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}