El Segundo’s Littlest Crime Fighter Stops Scooter Theft

Blair Sammons may be the youngest crime fighter in El Segundo history.

Police have credited the toddler, who will turn 3 on Tuesday, with thwarting the theft of his father’s motor scooter last Sunday morning after he spotted a man dismantling it on the street near where he was playing.

“He came over and was pulling and tugging on me and saying, ‘Someone’s fixing your bike,’ ” said Steve Sammons, who was working on his van in front of his garage at the time. Sammons looked around the corner of the Grand Avenue apartment building where the family lives and saw a man taking a section of the bike apart with the very tools Sammons kept in the scooter’s front compartment.

Sammons took Blair--who was suffering with the chicken pox, no less--back to the garage. Using a back door to slip into his apartment, Sammons called 911. “Six cop cars came in 10 minutes,” he said. “On a Sunday morning in El Segundo, they’re not that busy.”

The would-be thief had already fled empty-handed, but was arrested without incident a block away, police said. Police booked 24-year-old Erasmo Melgarejo of San Pedro on suspicion of auto theft.

Melgarejo was arraigned Tuesday in Inglewood Municipal Court on misdemeanor charges of unlawful taking of a vehicle and damaging a vehicle. He pleaded guilty to the first charge and was sentenced to 45 days in Los Angeles County Jail. The second charge was dismissed.

“I was amazed that Blair had the smarts to come to me and talk to me about it,” Sammons said. “He wasn’t frightened. He was real concerned that someone else was working on the bike because he’s used to me working on it. There’s no way I’d have seen anything.”

Interviewed by a reporter, Blair--a beaming little boy described by his mother as “concerned” and “well-behaved”--was matter-of-fact about the whole thing. “I was playing and I saw a man fixing my daddy’s bike,” he said.

Officers on the scene dubbed Blair “the kid of the day,” Sammons said.

Police Lt. Ron Scheu said he can’t recall any other toddler crime fighters in El Segundo. “He’s pretty young,” Scheu said.

And what was the young hero’s reward?

Sammons and his wife, Elizabeth, took Blair to a drugstore for an ice-cream cone.