Drugs Blamed in Man’s Attack on Baby, Mother

A drug-crazed man who grabbed a 2-month-old baby boy from the arms of his mother, punched him several times and hurled him to the street Saturday at a busy Van Nuys intersection was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, Los Angeles police said.

Armando Cordero, 35, of Glendale, was being held without bail in the jail ward of County-USC Medical Center, where doctors determined that he had taken an overdose of the drug phencyclidine hydrochloride, also called PCP, Sgt. Tim Day said.

The baby, identified as Ronnie Lumacue, apparently was not severely hurt, Day said. He and his mother, Mercedes Enrique, 18, of Van Nuys, who police said also was attacked, were treated at Valley Hospital Medical Center and released, a spokeswoman said.

Witnesses first saw Cordero standing about 1:20 p.m. in the middle of the intersection of Sherman Way and Van Nuys Boulevard, “staring into the sky,” Day said. After passers-by pulled Cordero off the street, he pulled down his pants, the sergeant said. The witnesses then pulled his pants back up, he said.

Then, without provocation, Cordero grabbed the baby from Enrique as she was waiting at a bus stop on the southeast corner of the intersection, Day said.

“Holding the baby with one arm, he began to punch the baby with his fist six or seven times,” Day said. “He threw the baby to the ground, the baby landing on his head.”

After Cordero punched the mother and tore “large clumps of hair from the back of her head,” the same people who had pulled him from the street subdued him and held him for police, Day said.