By Chelsey St-Pierre
The Suburban

Montreal Police are searching for a suspect who is assumed by authorities to have accidentally made off with a baby when he stole a vehicle in a commercial parking lot in Pierrefonds.

The vehicle was left running with the keys in the ignition in a daycare parking lot on Alexander Street. The mother had left the infant in the car with the key in the ignition in order to allow for the air conditioning to run, while she brought her other child into the daycare.

When the thief discovered the seven-month old baby snuggled in the backseat, shortly after he took off with the car, he stopped and left the infant on the sidewalk in its car seat on the corner of Alexander Street and Gouin Boulevard and then sped off again in the stolen vehicle.

A 911 call was made at 8:15 a.m. reporting the incident. The infant was quickly reunited with its mother, who was in a state of shock, according to police.

At 8:40 p.m., the same vehicle crashed into a cement roadblock in Montreal’s Villeray district on the corner of St-Urbain and Crémazie. The suspect fled the scene of the collision on foot and has not been located by police to date.

The mother of the baby is not facing charges despite the fact it is illegal to leave a child under the age of seven unattended in a car. “Unlike a criminal act that leaves no margin, in the road safety code it is to the discretion of the police officers to issue a ticket or not. In this case, the officers determined that the mother had suffered enough hardship,” SPVM spokesperson Veronique Dubuc told The Suburban. n