A video from the Fort Worth Police shows officers rescuing an infant who was abandoned after being taken during a car theft.
Bodycam video shared by the department on Wednesday showed police officers finding the 6-month-old child, who was still in a car carrier, behind a guardrail at the end of a dead-end road.
"Got it, got it! Aww!" officers can be heard saying into the radio in the video. "Hey, we have the baby."
The officers pulled the child out of the car seat and the infant began crying.
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"Aww, it's OK! It's OK!" Sgt. Ronnie Chau is heard on the body camera video.
Sgt. Chau has been with the Fort Worth Police Dept. for about 20 years. He said he's never experienced anything like Monday.
"I remember losing my child at the grocery for like less than 30 seconds, and I was freaking out myself. I can’t imagine a parent losing them for an hour and 20 minutes," Chau said.
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Police said the child was in the car when it was stolen at about 7 p.m. Monday along the 3300 block of North Pecan Street. A woman called 911 and told police a man she didn't know jumped into her car and drove off with her baby still inside.
A man, who requested NBC 5 only identify him by his first name Jose, said the baby is his nephew. The baby's mother is Jose's sister-in-law, and he said she stopped by his home Monday night to drop off an item. She was only inside the home for "a minute or two", he recalled. Because it was warm outside, she left the car running with the air conditioning on.
When she returned outside, she discovered the car was gone. Police say the car was stolen by a man named Elliot Reyes.
"At first, we were trying different methods to see if she had a phone in the car. Going in that direction. Trying to geo-locate that phone. It just took a while," Sgt. Chau said.
Officials said a number of officers joined the search for the vehicle including members of the narcotics, gang, and directed response units. About an hour after the initial call, police said they found the stolen car on Deen Street and took Reyes into custody.
The baby, however, was no longer in the stolen car. After talking with Reyes, police said, they found the baby unharmed about five minutes later.
Police said the child appeared physically unharmed and was later reunited with family.
Police said Wednesday that Reyes had been charged with kidnapping, abandoning/endangering a child, and auto theft.
According to online jail records, Wednesday afternoon, Reyes is being held on charges of burglary of a building, theft of property, and abandoning or endangering a child with bonds totaling $68,000. It's not clear if he's obtained an attorney.
