A newborn boy, with the umbilical cord still attached, was found Tuesday abandoned in a stroller near a church.
Police were sent to Vermont Avenue and Dana Street shortly before 1 p.m. on a call from a witness, said Los Angeles police Officer Drake Madison. Paramedics took the child to a hospital, where he was reported in good condition, he said.
Detectives were combing the neighborhood looking for witnesses and reviewing surveillance video.
ABC7 reported that some residents had spotted the stroller at the same location last night, but assumed it was empty and had been discarded.
Later, KCAL9 ran an interview with Alex Diaz, the man who first saw the baby stroller Monday night, ignored it, and then when he saw it the next day, found the baby.
Diaz said the first time he saw the stroller, he thought it was abandoned.
“The stroller was real dirty,” he said. But the next day, he walked up to the stroller, “pulled the blanket down, and found a baby’s head. I thought he was dead. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t making any noise at all.”
Diaz said he moved the stroller to the shade of a nearby tree “and as soon as I touched him, he started moving and crying.”
Madison noted that under the county’s “Safe Surrender” law, which was enacted in 2001, a parent or guardian is allowed to surrender an infant that is no more than three days old — without repercussions — as long as the baby shows no sign of abuse.
— City News Service