A barefoot boy believed to be about 5 years old was found unsupervised in the parking lot of a Far Rockaway laundromat early Tuesday morning, police said.
A photo of the child, described as in good physical health but nonverbal, was released to the media in the hopes someone knows who he is and where his family is located.
“He don’t say nothing,” said Lidia Rojas, a worker at Laundry City Express who saw the boy when she showed up at 5:20 a.m. to open the business. “But he listened to me. I said, ‘Come on, poppa,’ and he came inside with me.”
Rojas, the mother of three grown children, said she was startled when she approached the laundry, on Seagirt Blvd. near Beach 26th St., and saw the boy walking in the parking lot, wearing beige shorts and a white T-shirt, but with no shoes or socks on his feet.
“Oh, my God, a child out at this time,” she remembered thinking. “He was just there in the parking lot alone.”
Rojas gave the boy water and called police, who took the boy to the 101st Precinct. The Administration for Children’s Services was notified.
Police, meanwhile, are reviewing surveillance video from the laundry, said the place’s manager, John Estevez.
“[Lidia] was shocked,” he said. “I was shocked, too.”
Police said the boy weighs about 80 pounds and has short black braids.
Anyone with information about the boy is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800)-577-TIPS.
