A major crisis was likely averted when Amazon delivery driver, Juan Carlos Flores, found an abandoned 5-month-old baby on the side of the road in a Houston neighborhood. The infant had apparently been discarded by a carjacker, who moments earlier had stolen the vehicle from the mother.
On January 18, Flores was working in North Houston. He was delivering a package when he caught sight of a baby carrier on the shoulder of a residential street. But at the time he didn’t know there was a baby in it.
Flores assumed that a parent had simply left the car seat outside for a moment, so he continued making his deliveries. After about 10 minutes, when he saw that no one had picked it up, Flores approached the carrier and found a baby boy.
“When I saw that baby, I wanted to cry,” Flores told KTRK in an interview. “How could someone have a heart to leave the child on the side of the road?”
Flores went to the nearest neighbor’s house to ask if they were the ones who had left the baby outside. It was not the neighbor’s child. But according to KTRK, the neighbor went outside, picked up the baby carrier, and took it into his home. He then called the police.
Flores went back to his deliveries, but it wasn’t long before he saw the police scouring the neighborhood for the child. According to Flores, he took the cops back to the neighbor’s house, where the boy was being cared for. Minutes later, more officers arrived with the mother and reunited her with her baby.
According to NBC News, the mother had left her car running while she ran back to her apartment to make sure she had locked the front door. Police say the unknown suspect then stole her car with her son inside. Not long after the baby was discovered, the car was found on a nearby street.
Police are still searching for the suspect. If you have information, please contact the Houston Police Department.