Police Search for Baby Stolen With Car

Police were combing the streets of South-Central Los Angeles Monday in search of a 7-month-old girl, who was lying in the back seat of her mother’s car when it was stolen at gunpoint, police said.

Officers found the 1984 Mazda abandoned in the 300 block of West 73rd Street early Monday morning--several blocks from where it had been stolen--but the infant, Erika Johnson, was not inside.

The child’s mother, Erika Scott, 23, of the Oakland area, had been sitting in the car, waiting for a friend to come out of a home in the 300 block of East 82nd Place about 10:30 p.m. Sunday, when the gunman approached her, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Larry Hinrichs.

“A guy pointed a gun through the window,” said Hinrichs. “She said she told the suspect the child was in the back seat. He said, ‘Get out.’ ”

She complied, and “she last saw the car headed westbound from the location,” Hinrichs said.

Scott disappeared shortly after she was interviewed by police, Hinrichs said.

“She just vanished,” said Hinrichs, adding that she may have frantically taken off to conduct her own search for her daughter. “I wish she’d come forward. We don’t have a picture of the child (and) there are some questions we have that only she can answer.

“If she’d come forward, it would certainly help us find this child a lot sooner,” Hinrichs said.

Hinrichs said that incidents in which a vehicle is stolen with a child inside are rare, but noted that a similar incident happened within the last month in the area. The car and child were later found abandoned, he said.

The gunman suspected of taking Scott’s car was described as a balding man, 5-feet, 10-inches tall, between 25 and 30 years old, weighing 150 pounds and wearing dark clothing, Hinrichs said.