WEST HAVEN -- Last Friday, just after 4 p.m., the after-school program at Seth Haley Elementary School in West Haven was just ending. But it was just the beginning of what would be a nightmare for 7-year-old Anthony Cortez's mother.
“He decided he didn't want to be there anymore and he walked out of the front door of the building,” said his mother, Ashley Fox.
Nobody supervising the karate program, run by the West Haven Parks and Recreation Department, realized the second-grader was gone.
“Somebody pulled over and asked him if he wanted a ride,” Fox said. “He got very scared. So he started running.”
He ran in the breakdown lane of a busy Jones Hill Road, which doesn't have sidewalks for most of the way.
“A city bus driver sees him running, pulls over and says ‘hey, do you need a ride?’ At that point, my son is terrified. So, he says yes,” said Fox.
Anthony got home just as his mother was leaving to go pick him up. That’s when she says she realized she had made a mistake.
“The karate program starts at 3:30 and runs until 4. I thought it was 4:45, so I was not there to pick him up.”
The karate coordinator found out the boy was missing when a parent who was picking up another child said she had just seen Anthony walking on the side of the road.
“No word, no contact, no nothing and then it was a long weekend. So, there was nothing I could do about it,” said a frustrated Fox.
The Parks and Recreation Department declined FOX 61’s interview request, but says they are working to revamp procedures. And in a written statement, the department noted that staff members have apologized to Anthony’s mom.
“Yeah, today,” said Fox, who noted it took them a week to do so, adding that she believes it’s likely they never would have apologized had FOX 61 not covered the story and requested an interview.
Fox says she visited the Parks and Recreation Department on Wednesday to speak with the director, Bill Slater.
“The only thing I got from Bill was a shrug of the shoulders, and saying he (Anthony) got home safe and we are going to tweak a few things. That's not OK with me!”
Fox made it clear she wants to know who the bus driver was that picked up her son was so she can personally thank him. She also made it a point to praise the principal of Seth Haley, AmyJo Palermo, for the compassion she demonstrated during this unfortunate situation. The school has no culpability in this incident, since it was a Parks and Recreation Department program from which the boy left.
