2-year-old inside car stolen in West Hartford; teen in custody

A 16-year-old is in police custody, and facing 10 charges, after reportedly stealing a vehicle from West Hartford that had a 2-year-old child inside.

The incident occurred around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a woman reported her car, that had her 2-year-old baby inside, was stolen from Premium Auto, located at 932 New Britain Ave., and was traveling west on New Britain Avenue.

Capt. Eric Rocheleau said that the mother had briefly gotten out of the vehicle to visit someone at the auto shop, but it isn’t clear who she was seeing.

“She had just gotten out of the car. It was literally, from our information, a very brief moment from

where she stepped away from the car and that person happened to be standing in the [parking] lot, walking through the lot at the time, saw that, and jumped in the car and took off,” Rocheleau said.

West Hartford police were able to locate the car traveling near South Main Street and used a tire deflation device to slow the vehicle down, they said. The car was soon involved in an accident near South Main Street and Sedgwick Road where the suspect immediately fled from the vehicle.

Following the crash, police noticed the baby was not in the vehicle.

“We started checking ... the route we knew he took. We knew he went westbound on New Britain Avenue and then northbound on South Main Street,” Rocheleau said. “Within a few minutes, we got a 911 call that the baby had been dropped off, in the child seat, outside of Pepe’s Pizza.”

Rocheleau added that he believes the child was in the car for “about a minute,” before the suspect dropped them off.

Witnesses outside the pizza shop grabbed the baby and cared for the child until police arrived, Rocheleau said.

The child did not have any injuries and has since been reunited with family.

After the accident, the juvenile was soon taken into custody and brought to a local hospital “due

to the mechanism of injury in the vehicle he was driving,” where the airbags went off, Rocheleau said. He was cleared and returned to police.

Three passengers, including a woman in her 20s and two minors, in the vehicle struck by the stolen car, were uninjured in the accident as well.

The 16-year-old, who told police he was from New York but visiting family in New Britain, is facing second-degree kidnapping, risk of injury to a minor, reckless endangerment, second-degree larceny and six more charges in connection to the incident.

Rocheleau said the police department has contacted the Juvenile Court for a “Take into Custody Order,” in order to transfer the 16-year-old to a juvenile detention facility Tuesday night.