‘Mommy drop me off and left me’: Report details mom’s arrest after 6-year-old found wandering

A Miami mother whose 6-year-old child was found wandering alone late at night didn’t realize he was missing the next morning, according to an arrest report.

Annie Rivera, 30, is facing a charge of child neglect with no great bodily harm in the incident that began when her 6-year-old was found wandering alone around 11 p.m. Wednesday, an arrest report said.

According to the report, a random man spotted the boy walking on a sidewalk in the area of Northwest 7th Avenue and Northwest 17th Street in Allapattah.

The man told NBC6 that he tried to talk with the child, but he didn’t say anything.

“This is odd for him to be in an area like this,” said Arnett Johnson, who called police. “I said, ‘man, it’s a little (boy) over here, looks like he’s lost, he’s in an odd area, but you all need to come get him.'”

A detective responded and spoke with the boy, who said “mommy drop me off and left me,” the report said.

Miami Police released a flyer with the boy’s photo Thursday morning as they worked to identify him, and a Miami-Dade School Board Police officer recognized the boy from the flyer and was able to get his mother’s information, the report said.

Detectives said they found the mother, Rivera, and when they talked with her, she said she didn’t realize her son was missing.

Rivera said she had tucked him into bed earlier Wednesday night and left to meet a friend and work a job and when she returned between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. Thursday, she didn’t check to see if the boy was sleeping, the report said.

She also said she thought a woman who she was staying with had taken her son to school, the report said.

NBC6 spoke with a woman who said Rivera and her son were staying with her.

“I was shocked because that’s never happened,” said the woman, who only wanted to be identified as Stephanie. “I feel bad because that’s his mom and he doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Stephanie said she saw Rivera sleeping but didn’t see Rivera’s son.

“I figured she left her son with the Godmom like she does from time to time,” she said.

Stephanie said police called her and she called Rivera.

“I was like ‘hey, where’s your son? They said they found your son.’ She said ‘I thought you took him to school this morning.’ I said ‘you didn’t ask me, I know I didn’t take him to school,'” she said.

Police say when detectives talked with Rivera, she told them she didn’t know her child was missing.

“We don’t know her condition yet so we don’t know what condition she was in that she didn’t know that her child was not in the house,” Miami Police spokesman Michael Vega said.

Detectives said they found a Department of Children’s and Families intake from 2025, and the allegations were “concerns with inadequate supervision.”

Stephanie said she doesn’t know what happened, but she’s supporting Rivera, someone who she said just needed help.

“She does what a mom needs to do for her kid and she tries her best to be the best mom,” she said.

The boy is delayed in speech and may be on the Autism spectrum, but was in good health when he was found and in the custody of the Department of Children and Families, Vega said.

Rivera appeared before a judge on Friday who appointed her a public defender and told her she can only have supervised contact with her child. She was given pre-trial services with an alternate bond of $2,500.