A four-year-old child who was taken from her home overnight has been found safe, police say
An Amber Alert was issued for Julia Dela Cruz Monday morning after she was taken from her home in Aurora, Ont. at around 4:20 a.m.
Police are accusing her 35-year-old father, Mario Rodriguez, of breaking into the home on John West Way and taking the child without permission.
York Regional Police say the alert was issued after new information came to light about the man’s state of mind.
The child and the man were found nearly five hours later in Pembroke, Ont. -- located about two hours northwest of Aurora -- after the vehicle they were travelling in crashed and rolled over.
The child was in the car at the time with the man and suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Rodriguez was arrested at the scene and brought to hospital with minor injuries.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, a provincial agency that acts as a police watchdog, is now investigating what led to the crash. The SIU is called in whenever civilians are injured or killed while in the presence of police officers.
According to a news release put out by the agency Monday afternoon, the man and his daughter were spotted by Ontario Provincial Police officers near Bancroft.
Officers attempted to stop the vehicle several times but to no avail. The car crashed around 9:30 a.m. when it rounded a curve in the road on Paul Martin Drive.
Three SIU investigators along with two forensic investigators and one collision reconstructionist are leading the investigation.
Meanwhile, the child’s family says they are relieved the little girl has been found safe.
Arnold Rodriguez, the girl’s uncle, told CP24 he spoke to his brother at around midnight and he seemed panicked.
“He sounded incoherent when he called me,” he said. “It sounded to me like there was some kind of conflict and he was reaching out to family.”
Rodriguez said police knocked on his door in Mississauga at around 5 a.m. to let him know what happened.
“If I had a second go at it I would have kept him on the phone and tried to figure out what was going on,” he said.
