17 August 2023 , 09:14
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A missing 9-year-old autistic boy who disappeared from an IKEA store has been found dead.
Police have said that the young non-verbal child, wearing a black shirt, blue shorts, and distinctive orange Crocs, wandered into the nearby Red Hook Channel, on Wednesday night in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York. He was discovered in the body of water around 12.15am Thursday – more than three hours after his disappearance.
He was taken to hospital, where he later died. Police say they do not suspect any criminality.
The last sighting of the boy occurred just before 9pm, inside the IKEA store. Surveillance footage captured the young boy walking out of the rear of the store, a route that leads directly to a boardwalk and pier along the Erie Basin.
Family members, desperate to locate the missing child, were seen with dozens of police officers within a roped-off section of the boardwalk. The discovery of both of the boy's orange Crocs in the water near the boardwalk had raised concerns and intensified the urgency of the search.
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The young boy was inside the IKEA store with his family (ABC 7 NY WS)The NYPD had initiated a massive search effort to locate the boy. Multiple divers from the police force were seen combing through the channel waters for any signs of the child. A slow-moving police boat was also been deployed. One K-9 unit was also spotted.
It comes as, elsewhere in Brooklyn, a 17-year-old pleaded not guilty Friday to hate-motivated murder of dancer O'Shae Sibley. Charged as an adult, Dmitriy Popov was being held without bail after his arraignment in the killing of O'Shae at a gas station.
People were comforted at the scene (ABC 7 NY WS)His lawyer said the youth “regrets what happened” and may argue he was defending himself. O'Shae, who was a open gay man, had been dancing to a Beyoncé song while pumping gas at a Brooklyn filling station.
The 28-year-old was stabbed after he and a couple of his friends confronted the defendant “to speak out and protect himself and his friends from anti-gay and anti-Black slurs,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Thursday.
“Defending yourself from the anti-gay or anti-Black comments, arguing back, it’s not a cause for someone to take a weapon and do what was done in this case,” the prosecutor said. Politicians and celebrities including Beyoncé and Spike Lee have paid tribute to Sibley since his death.