above: video of thief placing stolen wheelchair in maroon Honda SUV.
below: Aliyah Rivera
Non-Profit Donates New One; Public Donates $6,500 on GoFundMe
Help Find this Grinch!
By Dan Murphy
A sad holiday crime has turned into good news for 12-year-old Aliyah Rivera, from Ossining. Aliyah, who is fighting a rare neuro condition Acute Flaccid Myelitis, had her electric wheelchair stolen on Nov. 16.
Aliyah and her family left the electric wheelchair outside minutes before she was to go to school. The thief is recorded on video in a maroon Honda SUV. He gets out and looks in Aliyah’s backpack and finds her notebook and a laptop. He took all of it and sped away.
The family noticed that the thief looked and found a notebook and a laptop, so “he knew it was a little girls wheelchair.” A GoFundMe page was set up to raise funds for a new wheelchair.
Link- https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-donate-to-help-replace-stolen-wheelchair?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
The GoFundMe page reads,”12-year-old Aliyah Rivera has been fighting Acute Flaccid Myelitis for most of her young life. She has the kindest and biggest heart and maintains a positive attitude throughout numerous surgeries, tremendous hurdles, and many medical challenge’s.Aliyah considers herself lucky to be able to go to school even though she depends on a motorized wheelchair and crutches to get by each day. On the morning of 11/16/23, as the family was going through their routine of getting Aliyah downstairs and outside for the bus, a man drove up to their house and took both the wheelchair and the backpack (that included her laptop and school supplies) from their front yard. Aliyah, who never gets down, is crushed and her family and friends are devastated for her. While they are a proud family, replacing the wheelchair and purchasing another laptop are not expenses they were prepared for so close to the holidays. This is where we are asking the community to come together in a collective effort to help them replace these items that are so crucial to Aliyah’s day to day,” reads the GoFundMe page.
A few days later, a Brooklyn non-profit voted to buy Aliyah a new wheelchair. Bill and Karen Santo of the Christian J. Santo Legacy Foundation will present Aliyah with her new wheelchair on Dec. 2.
The GoFundMe funds raised, ($6800 so far) will be collected by Aliyah’s grandmother, who I’m sure will still put it to good use.
The Ossining Police Department are investigating but need your help. Anyone with information on who this Grinch is can call them at 914-941-4099.
