"It's got some current to it," said Ron Robb, a College Point resident. "You would think it's very calm, but because of the way the river flows, it picks up current from Manhattan and then everything out to the sound."
Joshua's father, Ron Robb, told NBC affiliate KNBC-TV, Los Angeles, that his son was taken into protective custody last month and he believes that the boy ran away from school to seek out his parents.
According to KABC, authorities recently removed Joshua from his parents' custody and put him under the care of his teacher after someone saw the boy being tied to a pole, something Joshua's father, Ron Robb, said they do to restrain him.
"We had to lightly tether him while we were moving stuff out of our house," his father, Ron Robb, told KNBC. "We know for a fact that the reason he escaped was because he was trying to look for mom and dad."