Police arrest mother of newborn abandoned in stroller in South L.A.
Police on Saturday arrested the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned in a stroller in South Los Angeles.
Belen Ramirez, 20, of Long Beach, was arrested at 12:30 a.m. on suspicion of child endangerment and cruelty to a child, said Officer Mike Lopez, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Ramirez was being held at the LAPD’s 77th Street Station jail in lieu of $100,000 bail, Lopez said.
Lopez said he could not say where Ramirez was arrested because the information was part of an ongoing investigation.
A man found the newborn boy, whose umbilical cord was still attached, about 1 p.m. Tuesday. The child was in a stroller on a sidewalk at South Vermont Avenue and Dana Street, about half a mile north of the USC campus, police said.
The day-old baby may have been abandoned Monday night.
According to KTLA, a man named Alex Diaz told police he had seen the stroller Monday night. When he saw the stroller the next day, still in the same spot, he inspected it and saw the baby inside, the station reported.
“Something inside me just told me to check,” Diaz told KTLA.
The baby boy was taken to California Hospital Medical Center, where he was in stable condition, according to police.
Lopez said the child would be under the custody of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services during the investigation.
“It’s an unusual case,” Lopez said. “Nobody ever wants to see a child left alone like that.”
Lopez noted that under California’s Safely Surrendered Baby Law, parents who do not want to keep their newborns can legally surrender them at hospitals or fire stations. The law allows parents to surrender their children within 72 hours of birth with no questions asked.
Twitter: @haileybranson | Google+
Hoy: Léa esta historia en español
ALSO:
CicLAvia returns Sunday to the Westside, in Culver City and Venice
Critics fear sidewalk repair proposal will burden nonprofits, churches
Transgender prison inmate seeking sex-reassignment surgery will be released
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
