Man Seized After Running Down Girl, Assaulting His Own Son

A South-Central Los Angeles man, fleeing a drug treatment center while allegedly under the influence of PCP, was arrested Tuesday after he ran down a teen-age girl, broke into his ex-wife’s home and beat and choked his 2-year-old son, police said.

Rodney Keith Harris, 23, was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and was being held without bail in the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center, Southwest Division Lt. Vance Proctor said.

His son, Rodney Jr., was in critical condition at Martin Luther King Jr. Drew Medical Center. Proctor said Harris smashed his son’s head on the street, hit the toddler with a tree limb and part of a road barricade, and then choked him. The boy stopped breathing, but a policewoman revived him by administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Also in critical condition at King medical center was the 16-year-old pedestrian, whose name officials declined to release.

Harris had been driven to the King medical center’s Augustus Hawkins Mental Health Center by his parents, apparently because he had been acting strangely while under the influence of the drug.

Harris bolted, taking the car, according to police. A few miles away, in the 11400 block of South Central Avenue, Harris’ car hit another auto. The driver of the second car was not injured.

Proctor said Harris drove on, striking the pedestrian a few blocks away, then hitting a light post. He abandoned the car and ran to the nearby home of his ex-wife, Volanda Harville, 22.

Harris reportedly broke through a front window, grabbed the boy and jumped through a closed rear window.

The father allegedly attacked the baby, but his ex-wife intervened, wrestling the boy away and throwing the child into the back seat of a car driven by an elderly woman who lived on the block. Harris then jumped into the car, locked the doors and began to choke the child, Proctor said.

A passing Los Angeles police traffic division officer spotted the incident and summoned half a dozen other officers who broke into the neighbor’s car, subdued Harris and rescued the boy.