Minnesota School Officials Say Five-Year-Old Could Have Been Given To Other Adults — And Not Detained

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In a statement posted on Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said that agents detained five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos earlier this week because his mother declined to take custody and his father requested that the child remain with him after he was apprehended.

Columbia Heights School Board Chair Mary Granlund, however, said that another adult at the scene of the detention signaled that they could take Liam.

“I heard, ‘What are you doing? Don’t take the child’…There was another adult who lived in the home that was there saying, ‘I will take the child, I will take the child,’” said Granlund, who witnessed part of the incident. “Somebody else was yelling, they saw that I was there and said, ‘School is here. They can take the child. You don’t have to take them.’”