New York: Man arrested after abandoning 3-year-old daughter at Harlem Subway restaurant

New York Police have arrested a 34-year-old father on 11 July after he drunkenly abandoned his 3-year-old daughter at a Harlem fast-food restaurant.

Police said the father, who was identified as Stanley Fredrique, allegedly bought his daughter Natalie a sandwich at Subway just before 11.30pm before he abandoned her. The NY Daily News, the Long Island man cried as he told officers he lost his daughter.

Mohammed Rahman, a fruit vendor near the Subway, told the NY Daily News, "He looked drunk. He looked abnormal ... I never seen him before. He was rude to her saying, 'Go sit inside.'"

Rahman added: "She didn't look scared. She was happy. She was eating."

According to the Wall Street Journal, a Subway employee saw the child sitting by herself and walked her to the 26th Precinct. An official told reporters that officers at the precinct watched over the little girl as investigators looked for a guardian.

Fredrique later went to the 84th Precinct in downtown Brooklyn to file a missing person's report for his daughter. The NY Daily News, the Long Island man cried as he told officers he lost his daughter. The official said the man was taken into police custody shortly afterwards.

As he was escorted out of the 26th Precinct, Frederique told reporters: "I didn't leave my daughter ... I'm sick. You guys do not know what's going on in my life. I didn't leave my daughter."

Little Natalie was taken to Mount Sinai Saint Luke's Hospital to be checked out, police said. The Wall Street Journal reported that the girl is in the custody of New York City's Administration of Children's Services.

Fredrique was charged with abandonment of a child, acting in a manner injurious to a child under the age of 17 and reckless endangerment in the second degree, police announced.