Missing 3-year-old boy found safe inside car stolen from Newark, police say
NEWARK, N.J. -- A young boy was missing in New Jersey for more than two hours after the car he was in was stolen.
It started in Newark.
The boy was was found unharmed when the car when abandoned in Jersey City.
The suspect is on the loose.
It was an excruciating two and a half hours for the parents of the little boy, whose identity we're not sharing.
It all started a little after 8 a.m. Tuesday. The boy was in his dad's car in Newark when it was stolen. He was found in Jersey City around 10:30 a.m.
We are also concealing the identity of his father, since the suspect remains on the loose. He told us his son is "good." They thanked God they found him, and he's healthy.
The father works at an auto parts store around the corner from his Newark home, and said he briefly popped in to work.
"Came in to get parts from the back of the store. He left his car out there," co-worker Arthur Datorre said. "When he came back out, after only a minute, he went back and the car was gone."
The hunt for the car, child and suspect was intense. Other local law enforcement agencies joined in, and it triggered an AMBER Alert.
A break in the case came with the car found running and the boy inside on a dead end section of Liberty Avenue. The boy was placed in an ambulance.
Jay Koli could see the abandoned car from his front porch.
"A 3-year-old. Yeah, that's very shocking," he said. "I came out for a quick smoke, and I saw the car outside with the police already at the scene."
There were a lot of officers in this neighborhood, detectives were going door-to-door.
"See the actual car, everything here," Dennis Guzman said. "They literally have the car the crime scene here."
"Very happy the kid is OK," Datorre said.
Investigators released images taken from security video. Anyone with information is urged to call police.
