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‘Do you need help?’ Waitress’ secret sign rescues abused boy, police say – Pacifica Tribune


A Florida restaurant employee concerned about a “sad” 11-year-old boy is being credited by police with rescuing the child from ongoing abuse.

Flaviane Carvalho, a manager who was working as a server at Mrs. Potato Restaurant in Orlando on Dec. 31, flashed a note to the boy when his parents weren’t looking: “Do you need help?” When he nodded, she called the police.

She had noticed the boy because of his scratches and bruises and because his parents didn’t order him anything to eat, she said.

“I started observing them and I could (see) that he was super quiet and sad,” Carvalho said in a video released by the Orlando police.

She tried three times to get his attention with a note held out of the adults’ view. He saw it and nodded yes.

Officers arrived just before 11:30 p.m. and spoke with the child, who at first said his injuries were an accident.

Police took the boy to a hospital, where doctors found numerous bruises. He also was 20 pounds underweight, Detective Erin Lawler told local media.

“‘Abuse,’ I say lightly,” Lawler said Thursday at a news conference. “It was torture.”

The boy told detectives that he had been tied up and hung upside down from a door in his home. He also said he had been beaten by his stepfather, handcuffed and denied food, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

The boy’s 34-year-old stepfather was arrested on charges of child abuse and neglect on the night the waitress called police, according to an arrest affidavit.

The child’s 31-year-old mother, who was also at the restaurant, was arrested a week later on a child neglect charge.

The boy and his 4-year-old sister, who doesn’t appear to have been abused, have been removed from the home.





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