A car thief dropped a child off at a Northeast Philadelphia firehouse after stealing the vehicle he was strapped into, police said.
The silver vehicle was stolen around 4 p.m. from outside a shoe store at the Roosevelt Mall along Cottman Avenue at Roosevelt Boulevard, police said.
The boy's father was purchasing shoes for his son inside KicksUSA when he saw a man take off with his son in the car, an employee from the shoe store told NBC10.
The thief drove north on the boulevard to Philadelphia Fire Dept. Engine Co. 18 across from Nazareth Hospital and dropped the child off, police said.
Elise Blanks said she came across the child, still strapped in his car seat on the sidewalk outside the firestation, "I wasn't going to leave that child that, I wasn't going to leave him, he was in the heat. Firemen came rushing out of there when I said child."
The suspect then got back into the car and fled the area.
The boy and his father were reunited around 4:45 p.m. The child does not appear to be injured.
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Highway patrol pulled the suspect over in the stolen vehicle about three hours later along the 6900 block of Torresdale avenue in Tacony and arrested the suspect, officials said.
A neighbor who saw the suspect's arrest described him as a shirtless "skinny white man" with tattoos. She said there was also a woman in the car when he with the man.
