The family had approached the hotel's cleaning staff in a panicked state at approximately 10am, saying their child was trapped in a safe in one of the three rooms. It took maintenance workers approximately 20 minutes to free the baby. Police say the baby was alert and crying at the time. It's believed the family had difficulty communicating with hotel staff. "They did have a language barrier," Det. Const. Amanda Sanders said.
"And there was an incident that happened inside with one of the safes." She added that the incident "may have been nothing more than a preventable accident" and investigators are hoping to verify that by speaking with the family. Police say they had left the hotel by the time investigators were called, approximately an hour after the baby was freed. Sanders said the gender of the baby is not known and it’s believed the child is under 12 months of age.
YouTube link.
Police have also alerted border patrol officers and local hospitals in their search for the family. The New Jersey licence plate associated with the guests is B31EUB and is registered to a 2015 grey Ford van. Police say the van may have been a rental and is likely still in Canada. It is believed the family has not crossed the US - Canada border to return to Brooklyn. Anyone with information is asked to contact police.
4 comments:
This story sounds suspicious. They rented a van? And why would they need three rooms? Something smells fishy to me.
I gather from followup stories that it was a large extended family who live in an area of NYC where few own cars, hence the rental van for their vacation (I know from my immigrant employees who have gone there multiple times that Niagara Falls is very popular with recent immigrants in particular; the story implied they were not native to the US), and the use of multiple hotel rooms for all of the family members. The toddler and her siblings were playing hide & seek, and didn't understand how the safe worked, so couldn't free the little girl after she crawled in and her sibling closed the door and pushed a few buttons on the front of the electronic safe. I imagine the family members were terrified! KaraBoo in Ohio
http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/08/20/us-couple-whose-baby-was-locked-in-niagara-falls-ont-hotel-safe-contacts-police
The family contacted the police...
Thank you for the updates, KaraBoo and mjwoogums!
Post a Comment