A New York mom of four has been arrested following a disturbing video that showed her 9-month-old crawling alone after dark on a busy road in upstate New York.
Ledrika Ford, 27, of Utica, New York, was arrested on Friday, March 9, and charged with endangering the welfare of a child after her 9-month-old child was discovered by strangers crawling in the street, the Utica Police Department said in a statement released on their Facebook account.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Authorities learned of the situation after someone posted a video to social media showing the infant crying and alone on busy Bleeker Street in Utica on Friday night.
The video shows a good Samaritan kneeling down beside the baby and attempting to calm the infant by “You’re okay,” telling another man to call 911 and get a blanket from his car.
“That’s what people do now? Leaving their kids in the street?” another man can be heard saying in the video, which ends with a woman frantically shouting, “That’s my baby! That’s my baby! Oh my God! Oh my God!”
The mother left the area with the infant, leaving police to search for them for hours before finally locating them.
Ford allegedly told police that she and a relative were unsure of how the child had ended up alone in the middle of the street.
“She advised officers that the infant was secured in the rear of a vehicle that she was in when they left a location on Bleecker St. A short time later, she looked to the back seat and found that the child was not there,” the police statement reads.
She added that upon noticing that the infant was missing, she and the relative returned to Bleeker Street to look for the 9-month-old.
The infant was evaluated at a local hospital and taken into the custody of Oneida County Child Protective Services along with Ford’s three other children.
In its statement, the Utica Police Department said it wanted to “thank the citizens in the video who attended to the child showing their caring and compassionate spirit of the City of Utica.”
Ford is scheduled to appear in court on March 23. She has not yet entered a plea to the charges.
