A woman faces a strong possibility of being charged with child endangerment after her 3-year-old son, who had been left alone in her vehicle, climbed out and later turned up alone on a nearby street in South Los Angeles early Thursday, police said.
The woman told police she had left her son in her vehicle in a parking lot while she went to use an an ATM near the intersection of South Vermont Avenue and West Manchester Avenue around 12:15 a.m., said Los Angeles police Lt. John Janel said.
Janel said a driver noticed the child on Manchester about 20 minutes later. The man almost struck the child in a crosswalk, he told a news videographer at the scene.
The man, who had two passengers, took the child into his vehicle and began driving in the Vermont Knolls neighborhood “to find a responsible adult” for the boy, Janel said.
The good Samaritan eventually found officers who directed him back to the boy’s original location, where his mother had summoned police, Janel said.
The boy was taken into protective custody and the woman was questioned, but not booked, Janel said.
“The story of the ATM is not looking like what happened,” Janel said this morning. “There’s definitely some issues there we are taking a long look at.”
—City News Service