The five-year-old girl who was abducted by an unknown female from Bryant Elementary school (60th and Cedar) Monday morning was found partially clothed in an Upper Darby playground this morning, police said.
A passerby found the girl early this morning at a playground near 69th Street and Marshall Road. The girl, who was wearing only a t-shirt, was cold and crying and was taken to Children’s Hospital for evaluation. She was able to escape from her abductors, 6ABC reports.
The child’s ordeal began within minutes of her mother dropping her off at school. She was picked up at about 8:50 a.m. on Monday by an unidentified woman who police say was wearing black “Muslim style” clothes, including a niqab covering her face.
“She saw the teacher,” said Captain John Darby from the Special Victims Unit. “She indicated she was the child’s mother and that she was going to take the child to breakfast.”
The girl’s mother dresses similarly, which may have confused the youngster. Police said that the abduction was not random.
“The woman came into that school, knew where to go, who to see and asked for the child by name,” said Darby. “That child was targeted.”
Darby said that the woman was asked to sign a sheet to check the girl out of school, but added that the signature was illegible. School officials did not report the child missing until 3 p.m., when her day care provider arrived to pick her up, police said.
Philadelphia police have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Anyone with information should contact the Special Victims Unit at 215.685.3251/52/53.
January 15th, 2013 at 11:20 am
I’m so glad she’s been found! I was really concerned because such a long time had gone between when she was taken and when the amber alert was issued.
January 15th, 2013 at 11:48 am
That school should see some serious disciplinary action for letting that child go with a woman who was clearly not the child’s mother, without asking for any verification like an ID or even a simple verbal confirmation from the child that this was indeed her mother. This is gross incompetence. I hate to say it but the people who directly let her go with that woman should be fired or suspended at least. The principal and the rest of the administration should also see a serious dressing down from the authorities and there should be immediate changes to the school’s policies regarding letting child go.
January 15th, 2013 at 2:13 pm
The news yesterday said that various people picked her up from school, day to day, so it seems their whole system was lax, and that they are in an awkward position overall with lots of kids coming and going with many disrupted families and extended families taking responsibility. It’s not simple incompetence, but doing the best you can in a bad overall situation. In a way, it’s amazing that they all do as well as they do under the circumstances, and lots of genuine caring is involved, but unfortunately this incident now puts it all in a bad light.
January 15th, 2013 at 3:05 pm
That’s a really good point, Kofu. And if the election taught us anything, ID’s are not universal, nor are they easy to get. I don’t mean to say that nothing should be changed, but this wasn’t a mistake with a simple solution.
January 15th, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Only thing I would suggest is that they have a rule in place that they don’t allow kids to go off with strangers unless a parent or guardian called. The school can have the numbers registered when the kids first go to school, so they’ll know that it came from their legal guardians.
January 15th, 2013 at 3:26 pm
I guess I am just not as forgiving of errors like this which could have had far worse consequences. A little girl was kidnapped from out of her class room and NOBODY was aware of this until the end of the school day when child’s daycare center asked about her.
Wake up people. We should not have such low expectations of our schools if we ever want them to improve.
We’ve already stopped expecting our schools to teach our kids reading and writing. We’ve pretty much given up making sure our kids are safe from bullies, drug dealers and armed children in their daily lives. And now we’re saying that we should not even expect our kindergarteners to be safe from kidnapping while they are in their classroom.
I often find myself in this forum taking the hard ass law and order perspective and I come off sounding like some conservative Republican jerk compared to a lot of other commenters. I can assure you I am as liberal as they come politically and in most other internet forums I am the most liberal guy in the room and am usually called a ‘commie.’ But my old political nemesis former President George W. Bush, who I would NEVER ever have imagined quoting until right now, did have something right when he spoke about the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
January 15th, 2013 at 3:54 pm
The School District of Philadelphia has district-wide policies and procedures in place to ask for photo ID, maintain a list of guardians and require students to be brought to the main office. Unfortunately, the staff at Bryant did not follow any of them yesterday with tragic consequences. Even if the student had various pick-up people for aftercare, a “parent” arriving to pick up 10-20 minutes into a schoolday should have been a red flag for a potential custody issue if nothing else.
What happened yesterday at Bryant was completely contrary to what I personally have seen at Lea and Wilson elementary schools.
January 15th, 2013 at 4:03 pm
But in this case, not only was the woman not one of Nailla’s guardians, but she MISIDENTIFIED herself. She said her name was “Tiffany” and she was Nailla’s mother, while as Nailla’s actual mother’s name is Latifah. The fact that they would let Nailla go without even checking whether the supposed mother’s name matched her school records (you don’t even need an ID for that!) is egregious.
January 15th, 2013 at 9:29 pm
We can be sure that citywide, all schools are now tightening up enforcement of existing policies and procedures, and I agree with Amara that Bryant School may have been having more trouble doing that appropriately. But it’s too easy to kick a few low-level staffers around when I’m sure they’ve been in a difficult situation holding to all the rules under the circumstances that are, I’m guessing, harder than at Lea or Wilson. There’s a good book called “Street Level Bureaucracy” by Michael Lipsky about people working in that sort of situation. It’s never so simple as “they’re incompetent if they can’t enforce all the rules.”
January 16th, 2013 at 9:46 am
Just saying, but I have never once in 7 years been asked for photo id when picking up my child early from school in PSD.
January 16th, 2013 at 10:25 am
Others with more experience are explaining the general situation, in the comments on this article:
http://thenotebook.org/blog/135510/district-investigating-security-breach-bryant