AVENTURA, Fla. – Abraham Saad, a father of young children, said he was going shopping at an Aventura Target Saturday evening when he saw a 2-year-old boy screaming in a locked car that wasn’t running.
With hot temperatures and time of the essence. he said he managed to get the child to unlock the car by speaking to him in Spanish and showing him how.
“In that moment, I think about my kids,” Saad said.
Police arrived and arrested the boy’s parents.
Melvin Alejandro Jaimes, 25, and Paola Palencia-Rodriguez, 24, are facing one count each of child abuse without great bodily harm and leaving a child under the age of 6 unattended in a vehicle outside the store, located at 21265 Biscayne Blvd.
“You’re lucky you’re here today in court, rather than at a child’s funeral,” Miami-Dade Judge Mindy Glazer told Palencia-Rodriguez during a bond court appearance.
They bonded out of jail and their child was placed in the care of his grandmother.
Police said surveillance footage showed the child inside the car for 30 minutes while his parents were inside the store.
Saad said he didn’t want to think about what might have happened had he not been there.