Police Hunt for Girl, 2, Missing Since Sunday

Los Angeles police searched the area around MacArthur Park on Wednesday for a missing 2-year-old girl who disappeared from the park while on a family outing Sunday.

In an emotional plea, the toddler’s father urged anyone with information about his child to call police.

“Please call the nearest police department so that they can bring my baby home,” Edward Hummingbird said in an interview in the hallway outside his 6th Street apartment.

“If I had any money, I would offer a reward. But I’m on welfare. I can’t afford nothing,” said Hummingbird, 32, a widower with one other child. “She’s only 2 years old. I can have no more; my wife is dead.”

Valerie Hummingbird disappeared Sunday from MacArthur Park, where she had been left briefly with her 7-year-old sister and several cousins as Hummingbird returned to his apartment two blocks away.

Discovers Girl Missing

“When I went to pick them up, I said, ‘Come on, baby, it’s time to go home,’ ” recalled the father, fighting back tears. “Valerie was gone.”

Hummingbird’s other daughter, Tina, told him that Valerie was last seen playing with a little girl who was accompanied by two women. The father said he searched the park for 3 1/2 hours that night before returning home.

He said he returned to the park the next morning and looked for Valerie for about nine hours before contacting the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division.

“Some transient told me that you have to wait 24 hours before (the police) do anything about missing persons,” he said of the delay in reporting his daughter missing. “But the police told me that when a little kid is involved, they look into it real quick.”

Police interviewed people at the park Wednesday, but said they have no leads in their investigation. However, Detective Robert Thoreson said “kidnaping is starting to loom very high up there.”

For a moment Tuesday, Hummingbird and investigating detectives believed that the missing child had been found in a building not far from MacArthur Park. But when detectives took Hummingbird to a Department of Children’s Services foster home, the widower said the child in custody was not his.

“I had my hopes up,” Hummingbird said, wiping away tears, “but she was too young. She wasn’t my baby.”

The other child turned out to be the 1-year-old daughter of a woman charged with child endangerment Tuesday after the child showed signs of being abused.

When last seen, Valerie Hummingbird was wearing a red dress with flowers and two pockets on the front, and no shoes. She has dark brown, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information can call the Police Department at (213) 485-4073.