NYPD detectives have arrested the 22-year-old car thief who robbed an idling Acura on Thanksgiving while a 7-year-old boy was in the backseat, police said Saturday.
Sakho Mohamed was taken into custody without incident on Saturday and charged with multiple charges including car theft, kidnapping, robbery, unlawful imprisonment for speeding with the little boy, and abandoning a child when he pulled the vehicle more than three miles away and drove away. on foot.
His arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending, officials said.
Mohamed gave the child’s 34-year-old mother the fright of her life when he jumped behind the wheel of the Acura RDX idling on Macdonough Place, near Pelham Bay Park, around 12.30pm on Thursday.
The woman and her husband were outside the Acura, about to put a second child in the backseat, when Mohamed jumped into the car and took off, police said.
The SUV and child were later found abandoned about three miles away near Co-op City on Tillotson Ave. and Wright Ave., near the New England Thruway, police said.
The boy was not injured, but was taken by paramedics to Jacobi Medical Center for evaluation. He was then returned to his overjoyed parents.
Detectives found video of Mohamed running from the vehicle after dumping it, police said.
“They are indeed stealing from the park,” a woman who lives nearby told the Daily News on Thursday. “They steal the wheels off the Hondas and stuff like that. But something like that? This is a quiet neighborhood. This is a nice neighborhood.”
A 30-year-old woman who lives nearby agreed.
“I’m surprised. I mean, we’ve had packages stolen from us around the holidays,” she said. “But a car stolen with a baby? No. I’m shocked. My jaw hit the floor then [a police officer] said that.”
In an unrelated incident the next day, another carjacker robbed a red Acura with a four-year-old girl inside on 101st Ave. near 131st St. in South Richmond Hill, police said.
Officers located the car and child about five blocks away on 101st Ave. recovered near Sanders Place after the theft at 4:30 p.m. Doctors examined the child at the scene and determined she was unharmed.
