Device Helps Cops Rescue Child, Cuff Dad
Using an iPhone tracking application, 104th Precinct officers worked to capture a 30-year-old man and rescue his infant daughter whom he fled with after allegedly assaulting his wife at their Glendale home last Wednesday night, Mar. 14, according to police.
Alexis D. Torres was apprehended in lower Manhattan by police hours after he reportedly struck his spouse inside their second-floor apartment on 79th Avenue in the Liberty Park section of Glendale at around 6 p.m. last Wednesday.
According to information obtained by police, Torres allegedly attacked his 30-year-old wife during a verbal assault, then left the residence with their one-year-old daughter.
Police were called, and members of the 104th Precinct-including Lt. James Lombardi, special operations coordinator, Sgt. Peter Cassiere and Police Officers Andrzej Zdunczyk, Maritza Mendez and Mihay Tudor- responded to the incident.
During their investigation, police said, Lombardi learned that Torres had an iPhone in his possession and obtained information regarding his iTunes account. Through the use of the “Find My iPhone” application- a program in which the location of an iPhone can be determined if lost or stolen-the officers made attempts to track the phone, which had been turned off.
Cassiere reportedly continued to make attempts to track the phone and, in time, discovered that the iPhone had been turned on by Torres from a Brooklyn location. Police said that Cassiere continued to monitor the phone’s location and eventually tracked it to a building on East 15th Street in Manhattan.
Lombardi, Cassiere and Mendez were among the units who converged on the Manhattan location and found Torres, who was apprehended without incident, as well as his one-yearold daughter, law enforcement sources said.
Realizing that the child had not been fed or changed for several hours, authorities noted, Mendez went to a nearby CVS store and bought baby food and diapers. She then changed and fed the child, then brought her to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center for an examination. The child was found to be uninjured.
Torres, meanwhile, was brought back to the 104th Precinct stationhouse and booked on charges of third-degree assault, harassment and endangering the welfare of a child, police said.
According to court records, Torres was arraigned last Friday, Mar. 16, in Queens Criminal Court before Judge Mary O’Donoghue, who ordered him held on $1,500 bail.
