A crying baby was found locked in a safe inside a room at the Howard Johnson hotel on Victoria Avenue in Niagara Falls Tuesday morning.
Niagara Regional Police report hotel maintenance was alerted that a baby had been locked in a safe in a room where a family from Brooklyn, N.Y., was staying.
A maintenance worker went to the room and removed the baby from the safe. The baby was reported to be crying and alert.
Police say the parents, who were on scene, immediately took the child and left the hotel before police were made aware of the incident.
Police did not release information on how the baby ended up locked in the safe.
Police are trying to locate the family from Brooklyn because they want to ascertain the welfare of the child and see that it is safe.
The licence plate associated to the hotel’s guest has a New Jersey marker, B31EUB which is registered to a 2015 Grey Ford passenger van.
When reached by phone, hotel guest services supervisor Monika Chisholm offered no comment.
“We actually have no comment right now as it is under investigation (by police) ... we’re working with the police,” she said.
Jonathan Keplinger, who is visiting from Pittsburgh and is staying at the hotel until Thursday, said he didn't hear anything about the incident until he returned to the hotel later in the day and noticed reporters standing outside on the sidewalk.
"I don't know how something like that could even happen," said Keplinger, after hearing some of the details that had been released by the police.
He has owned safes in the past and said the one inside his room is quite small.
“A child can be small, but it would be practically impossible for a child to lock themselves in. There is nothing inside the safe that the child could grab hold on to close the door.”
Keplinger estimated the safe in his room is less than two cubic feet so there would be no way for a baby to accidentally crawl inside.
“It's one thing to leave a child inside your car where somebody has a chance to see the child there and get some help. To have something like this happen in a hotel room, that's a deliberate action, it's not an accident,” he told reporters at the scene.
The safes inside the rooms require the user to first punch in a four-digit code to activate it and that same four-digit code is required to open it.
Anyone with information regarding this vehicle is asked to contact Niagara Regional Police Service Communications Unit 905-688-4111, ext. 4320.
tony.ricciuto@sunmedia.ca
