Cops nab Bronx thief who swiped Acura SUV with boy, 7, inside

NYPD detectives have arrested the 22-year-old car thief who swiped an idling Acura with a 7-year-old boy sitting in the back seat on Thanksgiving, police said Saturday.
Sakho Mohamed was taken into custody and hit with multiple charges, including car theft, kidnapping, robbery, unlawful imprisonment for speeding away with the small boy, and abandonment of a child when he pulled the vehicle over three miles away and ran off on foot.
His arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending, officials said.
Mohamed gave the child’s 34-year-old mother the fright of her life when he jumped behind the wheel of the Acura RDX idling on Macdonough Place just down the block from Pelham Bay Park at about 12:30 p.m. on Thursday.
The woman and her husband were standing outside the Acura, about to put a second child in the back seat when Mohamed jumped into the vehicle and peeled off, police said.
The SUV and child were later found abandoned about three miles away near Co-op City on Tillotson Ave. and Wright Ave., just off the New England Thruway, cops said.
The boy wasn’t harmed, but was brought to Jacobi Medical Center by EMS for an evaluation. He was then returned to his overjoyed parents.
Detectives recovered video of Mohamed running away from the vehicle after he ditched it, police said.
“They do steal in front of the park,” a woman who lives in the neighborhood told the Daily News Thursday. “They steal the wheels off the Hondas and stuff like that. But something like that? This is a quiet neighborhood. This is a nice neighborhood.”
A 30-year-old woman who lives nearby agreed.
“I am surprised. I mean we’ve had packages stolen from our door around the holiday time,” she said. “But a car stolen with a baby? No. I’m shocked. My jaw dropped to the floor when [a police officer] said that.”
In an unrelated incident the next day, another car thief swiped a red Acura with a 4-year-old girl inside on 101st Ave. near 131st St. in South Richmond Hill, cops said.
Officers recovered the car and the child about five blocks away on 101st Ave. near Sanders Place following the 4:30 p.m. theft. Medics evaluated the child at the scene and determined she was uninjured.