By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-30 22:06:40 | Updated at 2025-01-02 18:52:08
2 days ago
Startling video showed the moment a woman abandoned a baby girl on a doorstep in the Bronx before vanishing.
Surveillance footage captured the hooded woman, dressed in light pants, white sneakers, a dark winter coat and black face mask placing the infant outside of a home on Reverend James Polite Avenue in Longwood Sunday around 5.39am.
The unidentified female carried the baby in a green reusable shopping bag as they walked down the sidewalk.
She then stopped in front of several homes before turning around, opening a gate, and leaving the scene without the bag in hand.
Mamadou Hafiz Jallow, the homeowner, then got a phone call from a neighbor informing him that a baby was crying outside just moments after he left his house that morning.
Jallow told his neighbor to call 911 while he rushed back, thinking 'let me go find out because this is sensitive,' he told DailyMail.com.
When he arrived, he spotted the green bag on his doorstep, peaked inside and saw the naked baby girl wrapped in pink and white blankets.
'I was scared. Felt compassionate. Sorry for the child,' Jallow recalled, adding that he quickly brought the abandoned baby inside and called the police again.
An unidentified woman abandoned infant child on a doorstep in the Bronx on Sunday morning inside a green reusable shopping bag
Surveillance footage captured her walk up the sidewalk before turning back around and leaving the baby girl on Mamadou Hafiz Jallow's doorstep
Around 6.05am NYPD officers responded to his home. Jallow said they stayed there for a while until medics came to take the baby to the hospital.
The homeowner said he believes the baby girl was just a few days old, News12 The Bronx reported.
The abandoned infant was taken to NYC Health and Hospitals/Jacobi in stable condition and is expected to survive.
She is currently in the care of hospital staff as the NYPD try to locate the woman who left her.
Although he was frightened at the moment, Jallow said: 'At the same time I'm happy I saved her life. I just want the baby to be safe.'
Distraught residents in the area were also left in disbelief by the shocking discovery as one man told Fox 5: 'I can't get it through my head how somebody gonna do that.'
'Hearing that this is even a thing is very disturbing for this neighborhood,' another woman told the outlet.
Jallow was notified by a neighbor that the baby was outside his home after they heard the child crying. He then took the infant inside and called 911 again
She was then seen stopping in front of several homes on the street before turning around, opening a gate, and leaving the scene without the bag in hand
Donnell Warden, one of Jallow's other neighbors, said the entire situation was 'very shocking.'
'If the mother didn't want the child, or whatever circumstances it was, you would think they would either give it to the opposite side of the family or do better like giving it to the police or something,' Warden, a father-of-four, said.
In the state of New York, a parent is allowed to surrender an unwanted baby up to 30 days without being charged under the Abandoned Infant Protection Act.
The adult would not face charges for surrendering a baby if they do so at a safe place, including a hospital, police, or fire station.
They are also 'not required to give his or her name' when they do so, according to the act.
As of Monday, no arrests have been made and the investigation remains ongoing. The NYPD has urged the public to report any information related to the incident.
