Leon Tennant
/ photo: Syracuse Police
SYRACUSE -- Syracuse Police say a four-year-old boy was found alone in a parking lot after he had been missing for hours Sunday night.
52-year-old Leon Tennant of Rome faces child endangerment and vehicle theft charges after a the boy he was supposedly watching was found standing alone in the parking lot of a Key Bank on Butternut Street. Syracuse Police say the child's family members allowed Tennant, an acquaintance the boy's father knew from rehab, to walk with the boy to a store Sunday evening. When Tennant and the boy didn't return, the family called police.
The search began when the family called police to their home on Highland Street around 10:20 p.m. The boy was found unharmed by a local resident around 11:40 p.m.
After a second search for Tennant, police located and arrested him on Willow Street around 12:30 a.m. He has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, as well as unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and criminal possession of stolen property for having a Chevy pickup truck that had been stolen in Rome. He was also charged with resisting arrest and criminal possesion of a controlled substance. He was scheduled to be arraigned in Syracuse City Court on Monday.
Police say the boy appeared to be fine but was taken to a hospital as a precaution.
(Information from CNY Central reporter Jessica Cain and the Associated Press was used in this report.)
