From the Police Desk:Baby freed from safe. Parents sought by police

Police are searching for an American family whose infant ended up locked in a hotel safe in Niagara Falls, Ont.

The Niagara Regional Police Service said in a news release that the family, from the New York City borough of Brooklyn, was staying at the Howard Johnson Hotel by the Falls in Niagara Falls.

On Tuesday at around 10 a.m., the family notified hotel staff that their baby had been locked in a safe in the room and a maintenance worker was sent to free the infant. The baby was “alert and crying,” police said in a news release. But the parents, who were on scene when the maintenance worker freed the baby, left the hotel with the baby before police were told what happened.  Det.-Const. Amanda Sanders, of Niagara regional police’s child abuse unit, told media in Niagara its still unclear how the baby wound up in the safe. “At this point we don’t know if it’s anything more than a preventable accident,” she said.

Sanders said that police believed that the baby is less than a year old and small enough to fit in the safe, which is about 50 centimetres wide, 35 centimetres tall and 43 centimetres deep.

U.S. border services have also been notified about the incident and said the van has not crossed back into America, said Scott Kraushar of the Niagara regional police. The family is believed to be travelling in a 2015 grey Ford van, with the license plate B31EUB.