Boy Attacked Aboard Transit Van, Officials Say

The driver of a Santa Clarita Dial-a-Ride van has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder for allegedly beating a 10-year-old Castaic boy after he boarded the vehicle, a Sheriff’s Department official said Saturday.

Mike White, 31, of Saugus was arrested Friday night after the boy was found earlier in the day on a rural Val Verde road, the official said.

“It was a horrendous type of crime and also random,” said Lt. Tim Peters of the Santa Clarita Valley sheriff’s station. Investigators did not have a motive for the alleged attack, Peters said, and were trying to determine if the boy had been sexually assaulted.

The boy, whose name was not released, had bruises and scratches on his face and upper body, but officials at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita would not provide details Saturday about the boy’s condition or say if he is still in the hospital.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested White at his home on Larkmain Drive around 9 p.m., Peters said. White, a Santa Clarita Transit Co. employee, was being held at the Santa Clarita Valley jail in lieu of $1-million bail, Peters said.

The boy and White did not know each other, he said.

White, who has no criminal record, will be arraigned at Newhall Municipal Court on Monday, Peters said.

According to sheriff’s deputies, the boy was on his way to Santa Clarita when he got in a Santa Clarita Dial-a-Ride van at Parker Road and The Old Road in Castaic. There were no other passengers in the van, Peters said.

After the alleged attack off Del Valle Road, the boy, waving and crying, flagged down Los Angeles County Firefighter Robert Dobratz, who was patrolling in a county pickup truck on Del Valle, Peters said. Dobratz took the boy to the hospital, Peters said.

Neither Dobratz nor White’s employer would comment Saturday about the incident.