E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSA 3-year-old who was in the back seat of his dad’s car when it was hijacked from a convenience store in Colorado is back home after the toddler sought help from a stranger.
The father, Anthony Pettiford, was on his way home from a family gathering early Sunday when he stopped to buy some gum, The Gazette in Colorado Springs reported. Pettiford said he was chatting with friends next to the car when a man jumped into his white 1995 Chrysler New Yorker and took off.
A family friend told KKTV that she and her boyfriend tried chasing after the car, but couldn't catch up to it.
"The only thing that we thought was, 'we have to catch him,'" Kim Rayford told the station.
As it turned out, the carjacker dropped the boy off a few blocks from the store, where he walked up to a woman’s door.
"Help me. I’m cold," the boy, wearing a diaper and a thin jacket in snowy weather, told Traci Gilbert.
Gilbert’s adult son drove the boy to find his home. During the search, he waved down a police officer who happened to be looking for the boy. The officer reunited the toddler with his father.
"He never shed a single tear the whole time," Gilbert told the Gazette.
Watch KTTV's report of the carjacking
The Associated Press cited Gilbert as saying she was amazed the toddler made it up the steps to her second-floor duplex carrying a plastic shopping bag containing soy milk, a sippy cup, two diapers, wipes and pajama bottoms.
Pettiford said he's proud his son. "I'm glad my son went to a good person," Pettiford told KKTV.
The boy’s name has not been released.
Colorado Springs police said the father is unlikely to be charged since he was standing next to the vehicle when it was carjacked.
The suspect and the New Yorker are still missing.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Romney's hot-mic moment: I'll shrink federal agencies
- Tough for Zimmerman to get fair trail, defense attorney says
- Maryland: A dead snakehead is a good snakehead
- 'Pray in sorrow': Search for 4 missing California sailors called off
- 'He was a good daddy': Father, daughters among 5 killed by tornadoes
- Illinois man drowns in pond following swan attack
Leave a Comment:
I can't believe so many people have commented on this non-story; even that it was written and printed.
Sure, I read all of the comments; I don't have anything better to do either!
Well, there you have your answer, right there in your own post. People are interest, so it got written.
Ok, I don't see any reason to blame Dad. He goes into the convenience store with son, runs into a couple friends, starts talking. Still talking as they go outside, he starts the car and puts his son inside because it's cold. They're hanging out and talking on the right side of the car (often where carseats are placed) when the carjacker appears and takes the car. Dad was with his kid the whole time and would have been unable to keep the carjacker from entering the car. Not saying this is what happened, but it's not even slightly unrealistic.
The part I find most disturbing is the adult son who, instead of immediately calling the police when a lost child shows up, takes the 3 year-old into his car to "find his house." I'm not trying to place blame, he might be perfectly innocent. I have no idea. We all make weird decisions when one in a million situations like this come up. But I hope the police at least investigated this guy a little bit.
Was it a hate crime or just black on black....in which case Sharton and his side show (including MSNBC) will not care....or was it "white" hispanic...when i was growing up the Mexicans like me were listed as white then 40 years later we are hispanic (whcih I never knew was a race)....
To bad he didn't have a conealed carry permit he could have "STOOD HIS GROUND" and handled that car jacker right there on the spot........................
Roscoe2u
(SARCASM noted)
Unless something has changed in the past 3 years CO is an OPEN CARRY state. It also has Castle Doctrine that extends to your vehicle. He would have been protecting his child so would have been covered that way as well.
I'm wondering why a three-year-old isn't toilet-trained yet.
It's not at all unusual for a kid not to be potty trained at three. He may have been only a few days over two, and some kids are well into three, or even beyond, before they stop having accidents.
That's not what I question what I question is why was the child in the car in the diaper in cold whether, and two if it was so cold why was dad outside chatting. The parents ought to be charged with something along with the carjacker. The police should have been also questioning why is this child out here with just a jacket and diaper in this " cold " whether. As for this stand your ground comment as I said there is something wrong with this picture I would not have been standing there while the car was running chatting with my friends some men need to grow up a little bit.
Kathleen- First of all I agree that the child's clothes are concerning.
Secondly, you're saying if you ran into a friend at a gas station and started chatting, the second you got outside you would immediately end the conversation and leave? Or would you continue talking while you warmed the car up and put your child in his seat? When it's too cold for a 3 year-old to be outside, is it too cold for you? Most adults can chat for a minute when it's cold outside, but might not want to keep their toddler out in the weather.
As for the clothes, which I agreed were a little odd, perhaps the 3 year-old IS potty-training and had an accident? Maybe Dad was running a couple errands and wasn't planning on being out long so he didn't bring extra pants? I don't know. But neither do you.
Is it a hate crime?
So glad the little boy is ok!! Thats pretty scary stuff.
When the person gets caught, I hope he gets charged with kidnapping in addition to vehicle theft. Sounds like the 3 year-old had the most presence of mind of any of the players in this story.
Now that the child is safe and sound; I would just like to know why is this child at age 3 still wearing diapers!!! The child is smart enough to ask for help so potty train him already. Lazy parents!!
I hope when (if) the carjacker is caught, they throw the book at him/her. In addition to carjacking, the following potential charges come to mind: kidnapping, reckless endangerment, child abuse/neglect, and probably several more I have not thought of. Anyone who would drop off a toddler wearing only a diaper and thin jacket in cold weather is seriously unconcerned about the well-being of anyone. Not only could the child have died from the cold, but he could have quite conceivably tried to follow his car, the only thing he knew in the neighborhood and thus a symbol of security, and then have been run over by the next car down the street. I hope they throw the book at the carjacker!
@amused,
Another unread, uneducated liberal...maybe your mother will be able to get you through high school in the next 20 years. I will try to help - let me know the HS or if you are going for a GED...I will send the passing answers!
@verno,
I will compare IQ with you anytime! Dolt - may describe you, your comments and lack of service. Yes, cops SUCK! Are you one more of the crooked f@%^ing pigs?? Useless wannabe military people - to afraid to REALLY put their life on the line, so hide behind society, crooked judges and useless anti-gun babies; the rest of us fight for your freedom to spew @!$%#!
To all of you blaming the father for not having prevented this, would you still be trying to figure out how it was his fault if he had been in the car and been forcibly pulled from the car? At some point he had to leave the child alone in the car, if only to walk around the car to the driver's door after putting the child in the carseat. If he paused, leaning on the child's door, chatting with friends, how does that make it his fault someone carjacked the car? I'm sure it is all on surveillance tape from the convenience store, which I would assume the police would have watched, and if there was something done wrong on the part of the father, they would have seen it. The fact that they commented that the father would not be charged about covers it, I think. They have all the facts, and didn't see where the father did anything wrong.
It's the stupid fathers fault, young people today have no clue to raising children!!!!
First off, it is never one person's fault for another person's actions. The carjacker is responsible for the fact that the car was jacked, not the father's. Second of all, I think you are not considering the logistics of the situation. I remember taking my two young children with me (can't leave them home, alone, of course) to the laundromat. Logistically speaking, it is impossible to carry a one year old and a three year old, as well as a week's worth of laundry, into and out of the laundromat simultaneously. I'd like to see you perform that feat! So, ultimately you have to leave the kids in the car while you carry the laundry in, and then get one child, leaving the other in the car, and then leave one in the laundromat while you get the other child. I don't care what order you do it in, at some point in this operation, there is one child in the car and the other child in the laundromat. And at some point both kids are in one place while you carry the laundry to the other. Before you judge people too harshly, try to think of the logistics of the situation. I'll bet a review of the surveillance tape will show that the dad put the child in the carseat in the back seat, stopping to chat with friends on his way to the driver's door. Either that or he had not yet gone into the store, and stopped to chat with friends on his way to get the child out of the carseat. Either way, how is that a wrong thing to do? Are you suggesting that he has to take the child out of the carseat from the driver's seat, and then take the child with him out the driver's door? Should he also take the child with him through the driver's door, and then over the seat into the carseat in the back seat? I don't think you thought this through very well. Do you even have kids? Have you ever dealt with the logistics?
He won't be charged ? How about charging the a**hole that stole the car ?
Anthony Pettiford needs hard stiff kick in his rear end, You never, I mean never leave a child in a car alone with the keys in it, this ignorant young punk of a father needs lesson in raising children, I'm more likely to be pissed at him than the scumbag carjacker.
Lee, the fact that you'd rather blame the father than the carjacker (you know, the one who actually STOLE THE CAR) says to me that you lack the ability to hold the appropriate person accountable for his actions. Secondly, I would agree that you don't leave a kid in the car alone. But I don't think he was left "alone." Yes, he was the only one in the car, but dad was a couple feet away. That's not leaving your kid alone. If he was in the store when the car was taken, then yeah, Dad deserves some blame. But he was next to the car, where he put his son to keep him warm on a snowy day.
2am. It was 2am. Of course he was keeping his son warm, cause it was the middle of the damn night!!!
And what relevance does the time have?
Because it means that the child had no business being out at 2am, let alone in the car by himself, which the father admitted. Obviously what the perp did was wrong, but there are a number of things that the father did that don't neccesarily qualify him for father of the year, either.
Where in the article did it say "2 a.m."? It says he was returning home from a family gathering. I doubt a "family gathering" ended at 2 a.m. As to the child being "left alone in a car by himself, which the father admitted," if you will read the article, the father was close enough to touch the car. Follow the link to the coverage of this story by the local news. It states that the father had returned from the store, put the child in the carseat, and gotten in the driver's seat to drive away. He then saw friends drive up, so stepped out of the car to greet them. It was then that the carjacker jumped in the car, which the dad had already started, and drove away. I'm wondering, if the dad had just put the child in the carseat before getting in, starting the car, and then stepping out to say 'hi' to friends, didn't the carjacker see that he put the child in the car? I mean, he had just put him in. How could the carjacker not have seen it? On another interesting note, the other coverage mentioned that the carjacker was Hispanic, and the video clip shows that the dad was Black. Isn't there some pretty sensational coverage of another case in the media right now in which some folks are implying that someone is innocent because he is Hispanic, and the other fellow was Black? And of course we all know that there is no Hispanic on Black crime, right? Hmmmm...
I just read in another article that it was around 2am. Even so, I don't know why that is such a crime. They were at a family gathering.
When our kids were little, and we didn't have much money, we (friends or siblings) would get together with our toddlers and just bed them down at bedtime, and continue the evening. The kids had fun together. We had an evening out, it was great.
Regarding the comments about a three year old in diapers, some kids are a little slow at potty-training. That doesn't mean the parents are lazy. My goodness, the assumptions! Also, my granddaughter is a very bright 3yr old who wears a diaper at night, she's a very sound sleeper. This boy was probably ready for bed, or even asleep already.
Give these parents a break. Things happen when you're dealing with kids, the possibilities here are endless. It doesn't always indicate parental neglect.
"The Parent" - Irrisponsible, Period.
Doesn't really matter but...................white, black, hispanic, asian, etc.....?
What was the plate number of the vehicle stolen?
If the media would stop the PC crap, maybe the criminals would think twice about doing the crime! If the media is too scared to report who (race, sex, clothing) then how in the hell can the public help to apprehend a criminal?
We The People need to stand up and let the media identify the race, sex, and clothing of ALL persons that commit a crime against law abiding citizens! The way it is now the criminal gets a pass because the media can't (will not) report who committed the crime - or even an accurate description of who did the crime!!!!
There is local news coverage in one of the links in this article. The plate number is in that coverage. So is the fact that the carjacker is Hispanic, and was wearing a white hoodie. So is the fact that the father, and presumably the child, are Black. All that information is available to the folks in the area where this occurred. The link to that article is in the article you are criticizing. It wasn't very hard for me to find the information, and anyone living in the area where the car and carjacker are likely located had that information directly. To quote the coverage, "The car is a 1995 white Chrysler New Yorker with license plate 083-VGE."
Little BigMan :)
Everybody's Perry Mason all of sudden.
"The boy's name has not been released"? So, if anyone knows the family, then the cat is out of the bag because they showed a picture of the father & named him! Sad the boy was taken, miracle from God he is okay.
I think the real heart of this story is that plucky toddler, that not only knew he was in trouble and asked for help, but also carried the plastic bag with his food and baby paraphernalia, lol. God Bless his heart. He's a true survivor and Thank God it did not end in a tragedy.
That poor little boy. This could have ended up badly but thankfully not. I do not understand why the little boy was not dressed warmer. It was pretty chilly yesterday with snow showers off and on all day. Way too chilly for only a diaper and light jacket. Oh yeah - why is a 3 year old still in diapers?
There's nothing wrong with a three year old being in a diaper. Lots of three year olds still have accidents, or are not fully potty trained. And the father had the child plenty warm inside the warm car. It was the carjacker who put a child out in snowy weather wearing only a diaper and thin jacket, not the father. Or was the father supposed to have dressed the child warmly in case the child was in a car that got carjacked and the child was put out in snowy weather to fend for himself? Let's put the responsibility squarely on the carjacker, where it belongs. The father did something almost any of us would have done - got out of the car to say 'hi' to friends when they drove up. He didn't even walk away from the car to do it, but stayed close enough to be touching the car. Let's stop blaming the victim, shall we, and be glad this child did not die? I am so happy for this father and child (and presumably the child has a mother as well), and I hope the carjacker is found, arrested, tried on every conceivable charge, convicted and sent away for a very long time where he cannot endanger another child for his own selfish reasons.
The dad must have left the car running or the key in the ignition. I dont see how the thief got away in this old clunker. This child seems to be neglected. Bet dad was scoring some drugs when this happened. Never take your eyes off your children not even for a second.
Where do you get off claiming, "Bet dad was scoring some drugs when this happened."? I didn't know that was what people bought at 7-11. I thought the article said he was buying gum, but I suppose you think that is code talk for heroin. And yes, the dad had the car running. He was about to drive away when he saw some friends pull into the 7-11 parking lot, and stepped out to say 'hi'. As for taking his eyes off his child, he didn't. He was close enough to the car to be touching it. You need to take your filters off and actually read the article. And no, I didn't say read into the article whatever you need to fit your own preconceived notions. Jeeze...
GretaNY,
I find your views offensive and ingorant. Could you back up the comment with any valid thoughts?
Is Car Jacking a race issue that is only Blacks do it?
Actually, according to the coverage in one of the links in this article, the victim was Black, and the carjacker was Hispanic. But of course we know that can't be true, because according to George Zimmerman's father, George could not have been guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin, because George is Hispanic (actually half Hispanic, half White, but let's concentrate on the half that most helps the innocence claim), and Trayvon Martin was Black.
What they don't tell you in this story is that it was 2am. What in the world is a toddler doing at a convenience store with no pants on while it's snowing at 2am? Hmm?
The father also initially told police that he had gotten out of the car to talk to some friends (those must be some savory people to be at a convenience store at 2am!!) and that the perp walked right past him and into the car while he was standing next to it. Now he's finally admitting to leaving his son in the car to buy a pack of gum. Perhaps a 2am gum run will be better thought out next time.
First of all, at least according to this article, the father did NOT admit going into the store without his son and leaving him in the car. Secondly, I'm so sick of people getting on parents when they have their kids out late at night. Did it ever occur to you that some parents have different schedules than 9-5? That some parents pick their kids up from the baby-sitter at midnight or later because they HAVE TO? Because their job isn't a comfy 9-5 like yours or mine? Or maybe they're driving home from a long trip? I'm not saying for this story, I'm just saying in general. There are plenty of reasons for a child to be in a car in the wee hours of the day. I highly doubt your child has spent every hour of every night of his or her life lying comfortably in bed.
With the exception of a trip home at 2am from the hospital when my daughter had RSV, yes. She's spent every night warm and toasty in a bed. AND with pants on. And since the police reported that he left his son in the car to buy a pack of gum, I'll believe them over MSN. That's why everyone thinks he left his son in the car, BECAUSE HE DID. Do you really think the father needed a pack of gum at 2am? Because that's what he told police after finally being questioned as to how the perp walked right past him while he was standing next to his car and jumped in the car and took off, because it didn't make sense. And we're not talking about in general, we're talking about this story.
Actually, if you dig a little deeper, like say, following a link to additional coverage, you would know that the father was on his way home from a family gathering, stopped at a 7-11 for a pack of gum (did not leave the child alone in the car to get it), put the child in the carseat in the back seat after getting his gum, got in the driver's seat and started the car, and then saw friends pull up as he was preparing to leave. He stepped out of the car (not away from it), and when he was close enough to his car to be touching it, the carjacker jumped in and sped away. He was so quick that the friends were unable to chase him down. Now, where was the part that the father was irresponsible?
Thank you, Heather. I think it falls on deaf ears with Audra. Some of us are fortunate enough to be able to have their children "warm and toasty" in bed every night of their lives.
However, to express such a sense of smug superiority, and imply parents whose kids are out for whatever reason at night are poor parents, is narrow-minded and judgemental.