Amber Alert Fails to Net Pair

Two children allegedly abducted by their parents during a supervised visit with the children’s foster parents were still missing Sunday, 24 hours after police activated an Amber Alert.

Leonardo Arciniega, 24, and Diana Polentino, 22, were visiting their 6-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son in an office in the 3000 block of Wilshire Boulevard on Saturday afternoon, police said.

They asked the foster mother if they could take the children to their car to collect some presents and she agreed to accompany them to the vehicle. That is when “they scooped up the kids and took off,” said Los Angeles Police Officer Don Cox.

Police said the couple lost custody of their children in May, when a younger sibling died in a shaken baby syndrome incident.

Rampart Division police detectives are searching for a 1997 red four-door Ford Explorer. An Amber Alert was issued soon after the incident occurred at 1:35 p.m., but notices were not flashed on the highways because police did not have a license plate number, Cox said.

Arciniega and Polentino were believed to be heading to Colombia, where the couple has family, Cox said.

Their daughter, Laura, is approximately 3 feet tall and weighs 50 pounds. She was last seen wearing a blue-and-white flowered dress. Jonathan, their son, is 2 feet tall and weighs 30 pounds. He was last seen in a red shirt and red shorts.

Police said Arciniega is 5 feet tall, weighs about 130 pounds and has balding black hair and brown eyes. Polentino is 5 feet 6 and 140 pounds, with brown hair and eyes.

Anyone with information on their whereabouts is asked to contact the Rampart police station at (213) 485-4061.