Alexandria mother seeking answers after autistic 4-year-old is found blocks from school
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (DC News Now) — A mother in Alexandria is seeking answers after her 4-year-old nonverbal, autistic daughter was found blocks away from her elementary school at a busy Metro station.
Brianna Davis-Suggs went to pick up her daughter, Rylie, in Pre-K at Jefferson Houston Elementary School on March 19, but the four-year-old was nowhere to be found.
“I hear over the walkie-talkies ‘there’s a child missing,’ not even knowing it was my daughter,” Davis-Suggs said.
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Rylie had somehow left the school’s fenced-in play area, making it to the busy King St. Metro Station three blocks away. Davis-Suggs said a bus driver spotted the child and stopped traffic, taking Rylie to safety. Police then reunited the mother and daughter.
“I was very emotional,” she said. “If she ran off, I was just thinking all types of things because she’s nonverbal. She can’t communicate.”
Davis-Suggs requested surveillance video to determine how her daughter escaped the yard, but said she was told there is no footage.
She said she has not sent her daughter back to school since the incident. Davis-Suggs said she’s unable to work right now because she was overwhelmed by her daughter’s situation. Other schools and programs are at full capacity, leaving the mother with no option she is comfortable with.
In an email, the school’s Principal of Academics wrote that the administration is working with Child Protective Services. She wrote that administrators are reviewing dismissal procedures, implementing a walkie-talkie system and having building engineers inspect the gates.
The school administration and school board did not responded to DC News Now’s request for comment in time for publication.
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