Local mom hopes to retrieve stolen custom wheelchair for son

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MINNEAPOLIS — It's Tamika Williams's day off work, normally she and her 18-year-old son Samajae would be out exploring the community on a day like this, but instead, Tamika says her son can’t leave the house.

“It’s frustrating,” Williams said.

Her son has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair.

Williams said that wheelchair was stolen last weekend, along with her SUV.

“I was inside the grocery store for maybe 20 to 30 minutes, and I came out and my car was gone,” Williams explained.

Williams showed KARE-11 the surveillance video and you can clearly see a car pull up next to Williams’ 2017 Hyundai Tucson.

An individual gets out of the vehicle wearing a red hoodie.

The induvial then smashes the rear passenger-side window and then they slip inside.

“Within about 45 seconds my car was gone,” Williams said.

Samajae’s custom car seat and custom wheelchair were both in the back seat.Williams says the car seat costs about $1,000 and the custom wheelchair is worth about $10,000.

“Plus a few more thousand with all the modifying they have to do to it. I’d say it costs about $16,000 when it’s said and done,” Williams said.

Williams did receive some good news on Tuesday when police found her SUV, but the car seat and wheelchair were nowhere to be found.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” Williams said.So, she's back to square one, with Samajae having a critical back surgery next Tuesday and she still doesn't know how she's going to get him there.Tamika is working with her doctors and insurance to find a replacement, but she's still not sure if she's going to have to pay for it herself, and she said it could take a while to save up that kind of money.She's hoping whoever took the chair returns it so her son can get his life back."I've got faith we're going to figure out something to get him a chair. I know something is going to give. I can feel it."Friends have set up a GoFundMe page for Tamika and her son to help them buy a new chair.

She said several mothers have reached out offering wheelchairs that their kids no longer need, but Tamika says they won't work because, with her son's cerebral palsy and scoliosis, he needs a very specific type of chair that has to be customized.

So, the only solution is to find his old chair or build a new one from scratch.

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