A 6-year-old boy with autism disorder, who went missing for more or less two to three hours after his school failed to look after him, has been found on a rooftop of an apartment several blocks from the school. The mother, Asmaa Awawda, demanded answers from her son's school as to how her son left the school premises unnoticed. Ibrahim Safi has not returned to his school since the incident and will only return if his mother is reassured that the incident will not happen again.
On Friday, Dec. 2, Ibrahim Safi who has autism syndrome was reported missing from P.S. 77 School in Brooklyn. Being diagnosed with autism, Safi has trouble speaking or communicating and is tremendously hyperactive. That's why her mother said: "You have to keep your eyes on him."
When Asmaa Awawda heard her son's news, she immediately contacted the school and asked them what, when and how Safi left the school. However, she did not get any reply from the school.
"They didn't have any answers... I want to know how my son left the school," the NBC New York quoted Awawda as saying. The mother worried so much as the boy does not know how to cross the street and that a truck or car could crash him.
It was till she was told that her son's aide during that day was permitted to leave the school half way the day to attend to classes outside the P.S. 77. So during the school day, Safari was left alone and unsupervised. The mother then assumed that this contributed to his son's unnoticed leave from the school.
Worried, the mother kept on calling the school and even her son's special aid and teacher, however even they have no idea where the boy was. It was not till NYPD Officer Christian Lopez called her and told her she knew where the boy was. Lopez, who was off-duty that time, has found Safari roaming around the hallways of an apartment building where he also happened to live in.
Lopes told to PIX11 that he heard noises in the corridor of their apartment and when he looked through the peephole, he saw a boy playing with a broomstick and trying many doorknobs. However, Lopez did not mind the child as he thought the boy was just from the apartment building. Lopez tried to check on the boy again, this time he said he saw the boy looking up towards the entryway to the rooftop, and that is when he decided to go out. At the moment the officer reached the entryway, Safi was already on the rooftop.
The mother blames the school officials on Safi's escape from them. Meanwhile, the boy is now safe and hasn't been allowed by her mom to go back to school until the school assures her that the incident will not occur again.
