Mother demands answers after her child wanders away from school - DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG

DC mother demands answers after her 4-year-old child wanders away from school

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Surveillance image from outside Madam's Organ restaurant on February 20, 2013 Surveillance image from outside Madam's Organ restaurant on February 20, 2013
Surveillance image from outside Madam's Organ restaurant on February 20, 2013 Surveillance image from outside Madam's Organ restaurant on February 20, 2013
WASHINGTON -

A four-year-old, pre-kindergarten student at H.D. Cooke Elementary School somehow managed to wander away and onto one of the busiest streets in Adams Morgan. His mother wants to know how that happened.

Nery Velasquez says she found out her son, Franklin, was missing when her sister called to say the principal and her son's teacher were outside the Velasquez house looking for him. Velasquez was at her job as a cook at the Adams Morgan restaurant, Madam's Organ.

Sources familiar with the school officials' search say a school volunteer noticed Franklin was missing right away, and that he was found within 10 minutes.

But the people at Madam's Organ have surveillance video that shows Franklin at the restaurant trying to get in, which was locked, 35 minutes before he got back home. And he had been wandering around on Columbia Road some time prior to that. Velasquez says some of her friends told her the boy was almost run over by a car on Columbia Road.

She says it all started when her son asked his teacher if he could go to the bathroom. She escorted him to the restroom, but when he came out, she was not around. Franklin told his mother he left from the back door of the school.

A D.C. Public Schools spokeswoman tells FOX 5, "We are deeply concerned. We are glad the child is back home safe. We are currently investigating."

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