Newborn, five hours old, found abandoned on front porch
Atlanta, GA (WGCL ) — Atlanta Police are looking for the birth parents of a newborn baby who was found abandoned on the front porch of a home in Northwest Atlanta around 1 a.m. Tuesday.
Frieda Burston tells CBS46 she was sleep and woke up to get a glass of water when she heard a baby crying outside her home.
“I kept hearing it,” Burston said. “It got louder and louder. I came to this window. There was nobody there and I opened up the door and the baby was screaming and it was in a baby’s cloth,” she described.
She says she picked up the infant girl and took the baby inside her home to call 9-1-1. Medics said the baby was no more than 5 hours old.
“They hadn’t even took the cord off the baby. So when the officers and police when I called them, they cut the umbilical cord in my house,” Burston explained.
Tuesday afternoon, Atlanta Police investigators went door-to-door on Mary George Avenue NW asking residents if they knew anything about the baby or possibly her mother.
Carole Williams said she heard about the child on the news. She cried as she told CBS46’s Hayley Mason that she will be praying for the child.
“That baby did not ask to be in this world,” Williams said. “I am glad the baby’s safe. I pray for the mother. But it’s all about the child,” she went on.
Georgia’s Safe Haven laws make it legal to leave a newborn at a fire station, police station or hospital with an employee. Those laws were not followed here and police say they could press charges when they find out who abandoned the child.
“You cannot leave a child unattended at any age, but certainly not an infant on a porch at someone’s house,” said Investigator James White. “There are manners in that this has to be handled. You have to contact a place of safely, A police department, the fire department, DFCAS, the hospital. These are all appropriate places that maybe the child should’ve been taken to rather than just driving up to someone’s house and leaving her there,” he said.
The Department of Family and Children’s Services says it will be searching for potential foster parents as police search for the infant’s birth parents. If birth parents are not found, the child could be eligible for adoption.
Anyone with information on the child or the mother is asked to call Atlanta Police Crimestopper at 404-577-TIPS
via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/03/newborn-five-hours-old-found-abandoned-on-front-porch/
Photo Credit: Getty Images