Crime & Safety

Update: Newborn Found Alive at Long Beach Gas Station

The baby was originally reported abandoned at the gas station but police trying to sort it out said they found the mom, who'd actually given the newborn to someone.

Updated at 1:00 a.m. by Long Beach police, who have found the mother.

Long Beach Police Department said it has located the mother of a newborn initially reported abandoned at a gas station but later determined to have been given to the person who filed the original 9-1-1 report.

Details were a bit unclear at this early hour, but police spokeswoman Lisa Massacani said that officers saw the mother of the baby, 28, driving around and stopped her car at about 10:45 p.m. Monday.

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What was originally reported at about 7:30 p.m. as an abandoned newborn found at U.S.A. Gas Station at Seventh and Alamitos was later determined to be a baby given to another person. The mother, who's name was not released, had delivered the baby about an hour before she gave it to the 9-1-1 caller. Police said she was taken to a hospital for treatement after the car stop, and may face child abuse charges as the investigaiton continues.

Earlier story below: 

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A newborn was found abandoned and alive at a Long Beach gas station tonight and police are hunting for the parent who presumeably left the baby.

The infant's gender and circumstances in which it was found were not released and called details of an ongoing felony criminal investigation for abandoning a child in a situation in which it might die, said Long Beach Police Department spokeswoman Lisa Massacani.

She said a passerby spotted the newborn at USA gas station at Seventh Street and Alamitos Avenue -about a block from the Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA) -  and took the baby home, from which a 9-1-1 call was made.

The baby, thought to be less than a day old, was taken to a local but unidentified hospital and reported in stable condition, Massacani said. She saidi she could not confirm reports by a KTLA reporter's tweets that identified the newborn as a girl who'd been wrapped in a blanket then placed in a paper then plastic bag.

KTLA Reporter David Begnaud tweeted that he'd just interviewed the woman who found the newborn between the air pumps (tire inflation hoses) at the gas station, and that the girl is now at St. Mary's Hospital in downtown Long Beach.

Massacani said police wished to stress that this baby could have been left safely and without risk at a fire station or hospital under the Safe Surrender laws meant as incentives for newborn Moms to relinquish newborns in locations that can care for the babies and pose no medical risks. California law allows for an infant, 72 hours old or younger, to be surrendered at any hospital emergency room, or additional sites, designated by county boards of supervisors, such as fire stations.


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