A New York City woman suspected of abandoning a 7-month-old baby on a Manhattan subway platform before hopping on the 1 train was taken into custody on Tuesday, police told the New York Daily News.
The woman, said to be in her 20s or 30s, was traveling on the 1 train uptown with a baby girl in a red stroller with white polka dots, witnesses told police. The train came to a stop at Columbus Circle in Manhattan at around noon when the woman pushed the stroller and baby through the doors onto the platform, turned around then got back on the train.
Witnesses told police the woman was black with medium-length black hair and was wearing a yellow top, the Daily News reported.
"It's really disturbing," Karen Rullman, a mother of two who was waiting for the uptown 1 train, told the newspaper. "I can't even imagine what the circumstances are that would cause someone to do that."
A woman named Catherine Boursier saw the abandoned stroller- and baby- on the subway platform and waited by it to see if a parent would come. When 20 minutes went by and no one returned for the baby girl, Boursier alerted MTA staff.
Boursier, 33, did not respond to the newspaper's request for comment.
The 7-month old was taken to St. Luke's Hospital to check her medical condition. Besides a rash the girl appears to be fine and is now in the custody of the Administration for Children's Services, police said.
A 20-year-old woman was found early Tuesday at around 12: 30 a.m. near 72nd Street and Broadway, according to The New York Times. As of Tuesday morning she was being questioned by police in connection to the abandoned baby. So far no charges have been filed.
Police said they believe the baby was intentionally abandoned on the subway platform, but the investigation is ongoing.
"She must have her reasons for doing that," Patricia Floro, who got off the train with her 2-year-old daughter, told the Daily News. "I mean something else is going on, something deeper that would make her do that."
