Baby Found Locked In Safe At Hotel In Niagara Falls
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - A family from Brooklyn has some explaining to do after their baby was found locked in a hotel room safe at a Niagara Falls hotel.
Police are now searching for the family that vanished right after the baby was freed.
The infant was rescued from the safe at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Niagara Falls early Tuesday morning.
The panicked parents alerted hotel cleaning staff that their infant was locked in the safe in their room.
A maintenance worker came into the room and was able to unlock the safe, where the infant was alert and crying, CBS2's Meg Baker reported.
It's not known how long the baby had been locked in the safe.
"We do know they are from Brooklyn, New York. We don't know where they are staying or where they are going," said Det. Const. Amanda Sanders, with Niagara Regional Police.
According to investigators the vehicle registered with the room is a grey Ford passenger van with the New Jersey license plate B31EUB.
Police said the family is Asian and did not speak much English, Baker reported.
But little else is known about them, including how the baby managed to get into the safe, which is about 19 inches wide, 13 inches tall and 16 inches deep.
"It's not designed for animals or people to be inside," said the president of the Empire Safe Company Richard Krasilovsky.
Krasilovsky told Baker there is no way the incident was accidental.
"There's no means of locking the safe from the inside. The only way that you can lock the safe is somebody has to enter the lock code," Krasilovsky said.
Once hotel staff realized how serious the situation was, they contacted police. By then, the parents had quickly left with the baby.
"People like that should be locked in a safe like they locked their baby in a safe," Derek Reid said. "It's absolutely sickening."
"It's hard to wrap your head around, it really is. It's terrible," said guest Graham Starkiss. "We could barely get her laptop in that safe."
The license plate has been flagged by border security, but at this point, police do not believe the family has crossed the border back into the United States.
The couple is not facing charges at this point, Baker reported. But police want to check on the safety of the child.