Man Arrested in Palmdale After Chase

A Quartz Hill man who led authorities on a high-speed chase though the Antelope Valley before ditching the vehicle that contained his 2-year-old son faces a laundry list of felonies, Long Beach police said Sunday.

Desmond Michael Moreland, 27, is being held without bond at the Long Beach jail after being arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, robbery, evading police, child endangerment and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution stemming from a federal warrant out of Las Vegas, Long Beach officers said.

Authorities said Moreland was one of three men involved in the shooting of an armored-truck guard Tuesday in Long Beach. Moreland is also accused of abducting his infant son, Jacob Perez, during a custody visit two years ago.

“The father had been given supervised visitation rights, and the first time he had a visit he left with the son,” said Michael Graham of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Palmdale station.

Sheriff’s deputies said they tracked Moreland to a Palmdale auto dealership but he tried to evade authorities by fleeing in a Chevy Suburban on Friday.

Television cameras captured the scene as authorities plucked the boy from the sport utility vehicle, which authorities said Moreland had abandoned at the Antelope Valley Mall.

A friend of Jacob’s family watched the scene unfold on TV and called the boy’s grandmother, officials said. She relayed events to the boy’s mother, Bianca Perez, 33, who then drove to Palmdale from her home in Las Vegas.

Officers said the boy was in the custody of the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services. It was unclear when he would be released into his mother’s custody.

*

Blankstein is a Times staff writer. Fox is a correspondent.