EL CAJON : Girl, 3, Snatched, Left in Trash Bin

A 3-year-old girl was snatched from outside her El Cajon apartment and later abandoned in a trash bin after being slapped, a police spokesman said.

The girl, whose name is being withheld because she is a minor, was playing in front of her apartment complex on Graves Avenue at 3 p.m. Wednesday with several other children, the spokesman said. A woman picked her up and put her in the back seat of a car, the spokesman said.

The girl told police she didn’t know the woman who took her from home, and that she had started crying as the woman drove off, officials said. The girl said the woman began to slap her when she cried, and that the woman put her inside a trash bin in an alley near the 100 block of West Washington Avenue.

A man was about to dump trash into the bin, lifted the lid and found the girl asleep inside, Sgt. Don Darrow said. At 4 p.m., the man notified police, who had not received a call that the girl was missing. The girl was returned home.

The man said he had seen the girl in the alley about 3 p.m. with a white woman, 25 to 30 years old, of medium height and build with dirty blond hair.