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Parents Upset After Bronx Public School Releases Wrong Child To Taxi Driver

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Parents of a young girl were sent into a panic after a taxi driver picked up the wrong child from a Bronx public school Tuesday afternoon.

"I'm so shaken still from the incident. It's scary. It's very scary. Heartbreaking," 4-year-old Malia's mother Almetha Holmes said.

As CBS 2's John Slattery reported, Holmes is steamed over the mistake that put her kindergartner into a car with a stranger.

"I never felt anything like that in my life. I was very, very scared. My mind was racing," the child's father, Fitzroy Melon, said.

The mix-up took place at PS 87 on Needham Avenue when Malia's father said Holmes asked him to pick up their child. What he was told at school when he went to pick her up shocked him.

"She left with someone, a gentleman went to pick her up. Someone picked her up already," he said, recalling the incident. "You know, a man, heavy set man, asked for her by name."

Fitzroy Melon and daughter Malia
Fitzroy Melon and daughter Malia (CBS 2)

Melon says at first, he was told his daughter was put on a bus, but was then told she went with a taxi driver who took Malia to the home of the child the driver was supposed to pick up.

The driver then brought Malia back to the school where her father was waiting.

"She came running out of the cab and running up the street, running up to me and this guy came up to me saying, 'I'm sorry. I got the wrong kid,'" Melon said.

As Slattery reported, the driver was supposed to pick up a girl with a similar first name: Malina.

"Very similar, but they didn't go by the last name, just the first name," Melon said.

The girl's parents understand how a mistake can be made over similar names, but say there's no excuse for putting a child into the wrong vehicle.

"My daughter was with a cab driver. They released her to a private cab company," Holmes said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education says they are looking into the incident and said the safety of students is always a top priority.

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