75°
Sgt. Danny Wurhl responded around 10 p.m. Saturday to a report of a suspicious vehicle on Maywood Avenue by Hunter Avenue when he found Carlos Arnau (mugshot, above) with the child, who’s not related to him, Police Chief David Pegg told CLIFFVIEW PILOT this afternoon.
Arnau was retrieving paperwork from the glove compartment when Wuhrl said he spotted a bag of white powder inside the box along with several key fobs and cellphones.
Arnau told the sergeant that he “just dropped off his friends, who were going to a girl’s house in the area by walking from the railroad tracks,” Pegg said.
The car belonged to the boy’s mother, he added.
Wurhl found the marijuana after obtaining Arnau’s consent to search the vehicle, the chief said.
Confronted with the discovery, Arnau called the child’s father.
Nearly a half-hour later, another man who’d been dropped off with Martinez told police that the dad was “still at his girl’s house,” Pegg said.
They, in turn, told him that the boy could only be released to his parents.
Another half hour passed before police arrested Arnau and took both him and the boy to headquarters. The vehicle was impounded.
On their way, police spotted the boy’s father on a streetcorner, “apparently agitated and flailing his arms in the air,” while talking with the other man who’d returned to the car, the chief said.
They stopped and turned the boy over to him — but not before the youngster high-fived the officers, he said
Arnau was released on a court summons charging him with possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia and failing to surrender drugs to a law enforcement officer.
The father wasn’t charged. However, Pegg said his officers alerted DYFS for possible follow-up.
MUGSHOT: Courtesy MAYWOOD PD
Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates.
