By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
HARLEM — A Harlem father was arrested after his young daughter was found all alone on a Harlem street corner overnight Tuesday, police said.
The girl, identified by her mother as 4-year-old Kadiras Kamara, was discovered down the block from her apartment on the corner of West 127th Street and Morningside Avenue by a bystander, who alerted the authorities at about 2:30 a.m., the NYPD said.
She was taken to St. Luke's hospital before being returned to her family's care in good condition later that morning, according to police.
Kadiras' mother, Fofana Namaga, said she was at work in Brooklyn, where she works as a hair braider, when the little girl slipped out of the apartment at 165 Morningside Avenue.
The girl's father, Yacou Kamara, had gone to pick something up at a store, leaving Kadiras with her two sleeping siblings, 9- and 12-years-old, and a male roommate in his 20s, according to the mother.
"When she fell asleep, he went to the store. She woke up and I don't know how she got out," Namaga said, while holding the squirming 4-year-old in her lap. "She was looking for her daddy."
Namaga said she did not know how long her husband was gone for, but police were still canvassing the area, attempting to identify Kadiras around 4 a.m., neighbors, who were woken by police, said.
When Yacou Kamara did return to the apartment, police were gathered outside the house, Namaga said.
He was taken into police custody and later charged with "Failure to Exercise Control of a Minor," according to police.
While Kadiras appeared to be in good spirits, safe at home Tuesday afternoon, neighbors worried about what could have become of the little girl, dressed only in a diaper.
"Anything could have happened to her," 25-year-old Harlem mother Charline Levine, who was on a walk with her infant son, told DNAinfo Tuesday morning.
"Something tragic could have happened to that little girl, the way crime is around here," another neighbor, Larry Burke, 53, commented.
Sheila Dixon, 49, who lives just a few doors down from Kadiras' family at 171 Morningside Avenue, said she'd been up all night worrying about the little girl since police knocked on her door early that morning, still attempting to identify the little girl.
"They knocked on my door, it must have been 4:10 a.m.," Dixon recalled. "I couldn't sleep it disturbed my soul so much...I've been up since 4 a.m., hoping and praying she's ok, that she wasn't abandoned."
A bodega worker on 127th Street said it's not uncommon to see small children walking around the neighborhood on their own.
"Sometimes little kids wander out of their houses and walk to the store. They cross the street by themselves," said Ralphy Lara, 26, who works at Lara Grocery. "I tell the parents it's very irresponsible."
