NO HARM, NO FOUL
Cops let man go who took lost kid to work
Cops have decided not to charge a man who found a missing 4-year-old boy on the subway — and took him to work rather than notifying authorities.
The 35-year-old man encountered little Messiah Cummings at the Broadway Junction subway stop on the Bushwick-Brownsville border in Brooklyn about 7:40 a.m. Tuesday. Messiah had just slipped away from his mother in the packed station.
The Daily News is withholding the man’s name because he has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
“The kid pulled my hand,” the man told the Daily News on Wednesday. “He was crying. He couldn’t find his mother. He was just saying that he can’t find his mommy. That’s all he said to me.”
Instead of alerting authorities — or any MTA employees at the train station — he took the child all the way to the supply company on the Lower East Side where he works. One of his bosses there promptly called 911.
“I was running late to work,” the man explained. “I could have taken him downstairs (at the subway station), but I brought him here with me.”
Police, who were desperately searching for the missing child, were glad to have Messiah back but became suspicious of his savior’s intentions — especially after learning that the man’s nephew once accused him of sex abuse, police sources said.
“I could have done things a little differently,” the man admitted to the Daily News. “I could have gotten him to his mother faster. (I was) just trying to keep the kid as safe as possible. He could have gotten picked up by somebody that could have did harm.”
In an interview at the 5th Precinct stationhouse after his rescue, Messiah told a CBS 2 reporter, “I didn’t know which way to go and he found me …. I miss my mommy, and he take me to his job, and he just let me in a room and he come back and he take me down there and take me here.”
NYPD Special Victims detectives questioned the man after picking up the boy from him but ultimately let him go without arresting him, police said. A police spokesman said there are no plans to charge him.
“They were trying to say like I kidnapped him or something, but I didn’t,” the man said. “I just wanted to make sure that he got to his mother OK.”
He said the abuse allegations once filed against him by his nephew were made up and the case was dropped about two years ago. Law enforcement sources said the victim didn’t want to go ahead with prosecution after making the claim.
“It was like a false statement that turned into a long thing,” the man said. “That was in the past.”
He said he’s glad he was there to rescue little Messiah.
“I’m just glad he’s back home with his mother,” he added. “I don’t regret it.”