Taxi driver picks up from wrong 4-year-old student from P.S. 78 on Needham Avenue

A school mistakenly allowed a 4-year-old girl to leave with a complete stranger, sending two Bronx families into a panic.  In a story you'll see Only on 12, Fitzroy Melon says his daughter, Malia,

News 12 Staff

Sep 17, 2014, 2:58 PM

Updated 3,674 days ago

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A school mistakenly allowed a 4-year-old girl to leave with a complete stranger, sending two Bronx families into a panic. 
In a story you'll see Only on 12, Fitzroy Melon says his daughter, Malia, was released from P.S. 78 on Needham Avenue to a taxi driver who was there to pick up a different little girl. He claims school staff members told him that she was put on a school bus by mistake, but that wasn't the case.
The girl was brought back to the school two hours later after another set of parents discovered that the cab driver had picked up the wrong child. Melon suspects that the girls' similar names, Malia and Malina, may be partly behind the mix-up. 
A DOE spokesperson said in a statement, "This was the first day that the driver came to the school. When the driver picked up another student, the school contacted the driver, who brought the student back. The matter is being looked into."