Texas cop rescues baby kidnapped in a stolen car then dumped on the side of the road

Gripping body camera footage shows the moment a Texas police officer rescued a baby who had been kidnapped and left on the side of the road near a garbage pile.

The incident occurred Monday night in Fort Worth when a man named Elliot Reyes stole a moving vehicle in which a woman’s six-month-old son was sitting in the back seat, police say.

The mother stopped at her brother’s house to drop off something and left the child alone in the parked vehicle for several minutes.

Officers managed to apprehend Reyes about a mile away after neighbors saw him get into the car and drive off, but the baby was nowhere to be seen.

The recently released footage shows one officer sprinting toward the ravine and another pulling the child out of his car seat.

“We’ve got the baby,” officers yelled as they pulled the child, who was hanging from the straps of his car seat, out of the ravine.

Sergeant Ronnie Chau of the Fort Worth Police Department told reporters that after Reyes’s arrest, officers put him in a car and told him to lead them to where the baby was supposed to go.

The Fort Worth Police Department released the shocking CCTV footage of the rescue on Wednesday, along with additional details about the rescue.

Police said officers were called late Monday night to a report of a kidnapping in the 330 block of N. Pecan Street.

The child’s mother said she had just entered the house to drop off something when a neighbor who witnessed the car theft alerted her to the incident.

Reyes fled and was later discovered with the vehicle, but the baby was nowhere to be seen when officers arrived.

Police had Reyes take them to where he dropped off the helpless child and found the baby near a ravine in an area littered with trash and discarded furniture.

Dozens of officers were quickly dispatched to the scene and ordered to comb the neighborhood for the vehicle and the child.

About half an hour after the call came in, the car was spotted about a mile away from where it had been taken from.

When the suspect was taken into custody, the officers began to panic because the child was nowhere to be seen.

“We were freaking out at the time. We didn’t have a baby,” Fort Worth Police Sergeant Ronnie Chau said in an interview with FOX 4 Dallas on Wednesday.

“We put him in a vehicle and had him point us to where the baby was,” he continued.

“Just worried about where the baby might be. Where is the vehicle? And find every method and means we can to remedy this and get the baby back,” Sgt. Chau said.

Five minutes later, officers found the boy in a dangerous condition.

“The baby was hanging on the straps of the car seat. It barely lingered. His foot was in the mud,’ Sgt. Chau continued.

The officers saw the footage sprinting towards the child and quickly comforting the child who was crying loudly.

‘Oh, it’s okay. It’s okay,’ Sgt. Chau can be heard saying in the footage.

The Fort Worth sergeant said he was glad the baby was alive and safe.

“I was just elated. It was like an hour and a half of just building up to just, where is this baby? Where could it be?’ Sergeant Chau said Wednesday.

“At that point, it’s just pure emotion and just letting go,” he said.

Medics examined the child for injuries and he was returned to his mother.

‘She was very happy. She was crying all the time, actually just smiling with happiness,” said Sgt. Chau.

Reyes was arrested and charged abduction, abandonment/endangerment of a child and car theft.