The Fort Worth Police Department has released bodycam footage of officers rescuing a baby who had been kidnapped and abandoned by a car thief Monday evening.
The video, which was released by local authorities on Wednesday, was captured from the perspective of an officer racing toward a street barricade. Another officer behind the barricade can be seen attending to the infant in a car seat near a ravine.
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The moment when Fort Worth Police Officers located a kidnapped baby who had been abandoned by the suspect near a ravine. pic.twitter.com/23PiQdk7Vs— Fort Worth Police (@fortworthpd) May 17, 2023
“[The baby was] hanging on by the straps of the car seat at that time, barely hanging on, and his little foot was in the dirt area,” said Sgt. Ronnie Chau, one of the officers in the video, WFAA reported.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD) explained:
“[P]atrol officers responded to a kidnapping call in the 3300 block of N. Pecan St. The complainant told officers that an unknown male had jumped into her car and driven off with her 6-month-old baby in the car … [O]fficers located the stolen car on Deen St. and took the suspect into custody; however, the baby was missing from the car.”
The suspect was later identified as Elliot Reyes.
According to FWPD’s post, investigators obtained information from Reyes and were able to locate the missing baby, who appeared uninjured and was reunited with its mother.
“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,” said Chau, NBC 5 reported.
Authorities have charged Reyes with kidnapping, abandoning/endangering a child, auto theft, theft, burglary of a building, and attempted capital murder of a person under the age of 10, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Auto theft has skyrocketed in North Texas in recent years, especially in Dallas, which has seen a 17% year-to-date increase through May 1 compared to 2022, with 4,999 incidents logged so far, according to a report by the Dallas Police Department.
