Officer rescues 3-year-old from porch roof in Cedar Rapids

A Cedar Rapids police officer rescued a 3-year-old boy who crawled through a window and onto a porch roof Thursday morning.

Neighbors spotted the boy around 9 a.m. on the roof at 424 10th St. NW, saying "Hi" to anyone who passed by. He sat near the edge of the slanted roof, with his feet against the gutter, about 10 feet above a sidewalk, neighbors said.

Arek Likanchuk, 18, who lives across the street, said he heard the boy when he went outside to smoke. He called 911, while his girlfriend went to help the boy.

"The kid was sitting out there in his diaper, and I started freaking out," Allyson Cottrell, 18, said.

Cottrell said she told the boy to stay where he was, while she pounded on the door, rang the doorbell and yelled inside the house. No one came to the door. She said the boy kept moving back and forth near the edge.

Officer Phil Meyer arrived and went inside the house to get on the roof, while another officer stayed outside and told the boy to stay put. Meyer snatched the boy up and brought him back inside.

Meyer said two of the boy's sisters were in charge of watching the boy, while the mother was at work. He said no charges were filed "at this time."

The boy's mother, Adonna Takes, 35, said all of the children were sleeping when her son, Christian, woke up and found his way to the window. She said he unlocked it to get outside and onto the roof.

"He has run away already once," Takes said. "He's a little Houdini. He's one step ahead of us."

Soon after police left, Takes packed up the children and said she was going to find her fiancee so they could address the issue. She didn't know what she was going to do. Maybe bars on the windows, she said.

"He's a handful," Takes said. "He will try anything once. He has no fear of anything."

Cottrell said children who live at the house are often running into the street, or getting into other dangerous situations. She said she has called the police before, concerned about their welfare.

"There needs to be something else done about it, because one of these times, one of those kids is going to get severely hurt," Cottrell said.