Glendale toddler wanders from home at 3 a.m.; mom won’t be charged

The L.A. County district attorney’s office has declined to file charges against a Glendale mother who was arrested early Tuesday morning after her 3-year-old son was found wandering in his pajamas slightly less than half a mile from his home while carrying a tablet computer, police said.

A woman driving to work at 2:49 a.m. saw the boy trying to cross the street near a Rally’s Hamburgers at San Fernando Road and Brand Boulevard, Glendale police Sgt. Tom Lorenz told the Glendale News-Press.

She initially thought he was with someone, Lorenz said. After realizing the boy was alone, however, she made a U-turn and stayed with him in the restaurant parking lot until police arrived.

When police asked the boy his age, he held up three fingers, Lorenz said. The boy was wearing clean pajamas and clean diapers, he added.

Officers noticed the boy was carrying a tablet, so they started flipping through photographs stored on it. When his mother’s photograph appeared, he shouted, “That’s Mommy.”

As police perused the tablet to find the boy’s address, a pair of officers walked with him throughout the neighborhood to help him find his home.

But they couldn’t find his house. Then police discovered an address in the 1900 block of Vassar Street on the computer.

Officers arrived at the Vassar address and found the front door open and the apartment dark.

As police announced their presence and entered the apartment, the boy’s mother reportedly asked, “Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?”

Upon investigation, police discovered the mother had no previous incidents of child neglect with law enforcement or the Department of Children and Family Services, Lorenz added.

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veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Rocha writes for Times Community News.