Missing Autistic Boy Safe After Frantic Afternoon For Newark Parents
NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- It was pickup time at school and an autistic boy could not be found. You can imagine how upsetting it was for his parents.
As CBS2's Tony Aiello reported, it has raised some questions about safety procedures at a Newark school.
"I was beating on my car. I was devastated. I couldn't understand, where was my child?" Gwendolyn Booker recalled.
On Wednesday afternoon, her autistic 9-year-old son Antonio Brown was missing from Louise Spencer Elementary at pick-up time from the after-school program.
No one seemed to know where he was.
"I'm trying to hold it all together myself, because somebody has to be rational," the boy's father Anthony Brown said.
"Only thing we know, a little boy walked up to us and said, 'we saw him walk out of the building,'" Booker added.
The parents said their minds flashed back to New York City, 2013, and the sad case of Avonte Oquendo.
The 14-year-old autistic boy wandered out of a school in Queens and was found dead three months later.
"The special needs children, they're special, and they need to be watched," Booker said.
Booker and Brown said they eventually learned a school aide failed to escort Antonio to the after school program that was on his schedule.
He said the aide asked him, 'what do you want to do? You want to get on the bus and go home?' I told her last night, he's not able to make no decisions for himself, and that wasn't proper procedure or protocol," Booker said.
The parents said Antonio spent an hour on the bus as the driver stopped repeatedly at their complex where no one was home to collect the boy.
He was upset, but okay when they eventually reunited.
"Somebody's got to be held accountable for this," Antonio said.
The parents said the principal took full responsibility, apologized, and promised to put procedures in place to make sure this doesn't happen again.
