Cops looking for 7-year-old Staten Island boy missing from foster home

Published: Monday, January 25, 2010, 4:19 PM Updated: Monday, January 25, 2010, 4:33 PM

Seven-year-old Patrick Alford has been missing since Friday.

By John M. Annese/Staten Island Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are seeking the public's help in finding a 7-year-old Staten Island boy who went missing from a Brooklyn foster home over the weekend.

Patrick Alford was last seen at about 9 p.m. Friday, leaving the lobby of the Spring Creek development at 130 Vandalia Ave. in East New York.
He had just been placed with a foster mother in the apartment complex three weeks prior, after his own mother, Jennifer Rodriguez, 23, of New Brighton, was arrested on petit larceny charges, said Ms. Rodriguez's aunt, Brenda Ortiz.
Alford is described as 4 feet, 8 inches tall, 65 pounds, with a small scar over his left eyebrow. He was last seen wearing a red T-shirt, blue jeans and black sneakers.
"He had no coat on," Ms. Ortiz said, adding that police dogs lost his scent in the area of the Belt Parkway.
"We're looking ourselves," she said. "We went to Brooklyn, we put out fliers."
His foster mother, who authorities did not identify to the Advance, told authorities that she and Patrick went through the lobby of the building to throw out the garbage, according to Ms. Ortiz. She went back upstairs to her apartment to take a phone call and when she came back down, Patrick was gone, Ms. Ortiz said.
The foster mom told the Daily News that Patrick has been running away from the day he come in.... He's trying to get back to his mom."
Ms. Ortiz said she didn't believe Patrick was trying to return to his mother and couldn't think of where he might be headed. "We don't know," she said. "We think something happened to him. I don't know. Everybody's a wreck."
Police are asking anyone with information on Patrick's whereabouts to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS (8477). Tipsters can also visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com, or send information via text message, by texting 274637 (CRIMES) and entering TIP577. All calls will be kept confidential, according to police officials.