School lets grandmother take home wrong child

PATERSON, N.J. (WABC) -- A school gave a toddler to a total stranger, and the stranger took the little girl home!

Now, her father is furious. How did this happen?

"I just wanted to get to the school and see my child," said Gemar Mills, Madison's father.

Gemar Mills and his daughter Madison are together again. But what a scare the 31-year-old father endured last week when administrators at the Dale Avenue School in Paterson allowed a grandmother to mistakenly take home the wrong toddler.

"The person who is supposed to pick up a child must be on the list, if not the parent. They did not send the parent inside to be identified. They simply took her word for it that she was the grandparent of the child and allowed her to leave the premises with my child," Mills said.

Mills says to make matters worse; administrators never contacted law enforcement after his daughter was taken by the wrong guardian. That's a direct violation of the policy posted on the Paterson Public Schools website.

"The policy is not the issue here. Changing policy? It's not the problem. And what they did is not really a big change. But the problem is the adult's negligence on all levels," Mills said.

District leaders acknowledged the mishap and apologized, saying in a statement, "Within minutes, the school principal realized the mistake and worked quickly to ensure the child was returned safely to the school (which she was within 30 minutes). Disciplinary action has been taken for the two staff members who released the child."

"I think I should be offended by the fact that it was only 30 minutes. Would five minutes have made it better? 35, 40, 50 minutes? At what point is the time not a factor in the fact that a child has been abducted?" Mills said.