A near-kidnapping at a Bronx apartment building has left a 2-year-old boy and his mother terrified to leave their home, the boy’s grandfather said Saturday.
“No, mom! I can’t go outside. I’m scared,” the grandfather heard the child say to his mother Friday, just three days after the bizarre clash with Darlyn Thomas, who was arrested Thursday on charges of attempted kidnapping.
The harrowing encounter has left the 23-year-old mother on edge, said her father, who asked to remain anonymous.
“Sometimes she cries,” he said. “I ask what happened. She remembers the lady’s face.
“She’s scared,” said the concerned father.
It remained unclear what prompted the encounter Tuesday evening in the laundry room of the E. 180th St. building near Vyse Ave. in West Farms, about two blocks from the Bronx Zoo. Thomas lives in the building, which is located in NYCHA’s Lambert Houses development, police said.
On Friday, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Thomas. A DA spokeswoman confirmed the decision but declined further comment.
Thomas, 32, was reportedly heard shouting: “Give me the child!” as she tried to take the child from his mother near the building’s laundry room. The young mother did not live in the building, but came to refill her laundry payment card at a machine.
In the victim’s nearby building, the machine for refilling laundry cards was broken, her father said.
The victim told police she entered the building when Thomas allegedly followed her inside. A few moments later, near the laundry room, Thomas allegedly grabbed her arm and demanded she hand over the child.
“She said, ‘Give me that child!’ twice,” said the young mother’s father. “And my daughter said, ‘Why? No!'”
In a panic, the victim picked her child up in a bear hug to protect him from Thomas, the grandfather said.
“When [Thomas] to take [my daughter’s] arm of my grandson, my daughter had a hard time coming back,” he said.
The mother was eventually able to break free from the stranger and run off with the boy, police said. But Thomas allegedly chased them, trying to grab the toddler’s hand.
As she entered the lobby, she ran past building resident Shaquille Ranger and bumped into her.
“[The mom] shouted, ‘Help! Staff!’ and then I really grabbed her [and put her in the laundry room]” said Ranger, 32. “If you lock the door, once you go in, you can’t really open the door unless you have a key.”
Thomas stood right behind the mother and child with a horrified look on her face, Ranger recalled.
“Her eyes looked directly at the baby,” said the Good Samaritan. “Don’t look at the mother, don’t look at us, [just] the baby. She didn’t even listen to what any of us were saying: ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?'”
Moments later, Thomas took the elevator to the 12th floor and disappeared. No injuries have been reported.
The NYPD released surveillance images of the woman, who was quickly identified as Thomas, police said.
Thomas was not home on Saturday. Her friend, who witnessed the end of the encounter, called the whole ordeal a “misunderstanding.”
“It’s very bizarre, because it’s not her,” says the 33-year-old man, who does not want to be named. ‘She knows it well. She knows there are cameras. She’s not stupid. So that’s definitely not her.”
The friend said he went to the lobby to help Thomas with laundry when “there was a big commotion,” he recalled.
“I didn’t know what happened,” he said. “I thought, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Everyone said, ‘She’s trying to take my kids.’ I thought, ‘What?’ And then I grabbed my girlfriend and we went upstairs.”
Thomas, he said, has a 6-year-old child, which makes the allegations against her even more mysterious, he said.
“She’s a great mother,” he said. “She takes care of her child.”
Thomas has not returned to the building since her arrest, but the child’s grandfather says he fears her return.
“Today it was us, but tomorrow it might be a different child,” he explained. “It’s not good.
“It’s very, very dangerous,” he said.
