Police: Carjackers abandon child from minivan in Oak Park before crash

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Police said two teenagers are in custody for allegedly stealing a minivan from the Galewood neighborhood on Chicago's Northwest Side, abandoning a toddler who was inside in west suburban Oak Park and then crashing the vehicle in the West Side Austin neighborhood.

At 6:18 p.m., a woman left her 1999 White Pontiac minivan unattended and running with a 2-year-old child inside while she stopped at a Galewood pizza place and ran inside to pick up a delivery order.

While she was inside the restaurant, police said two teenagers got into the vehicle and drove off.

Police said they abandoned the little boy about a half a mile away, leaving him in the cold on the porch of an Oak Park home. They banged on the door and drove off. The family inside opened the door to find the child standing there, alone.

"I sort of picked him up, juggling him, telling him it was going to be okay. He clearly wanted to go back to his parents," said the woman who found him, who did not want to be identified.

Police said the toddler was not injured.

As police reunited the toddler with his parents, investigators said the teenagers crashed the minivan at Jackson and Central in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago. Police took them into custody at the scene.

Details on the circumstances of the crash were unknown.

Charges were pending Monday night as Area North detectives investigated the incident.

The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.