San Diego kidnap suspect caught after asking young victim’s family for a jump-start, police say

Reporting from San Diego —  A man suspected of trying to kidnap a 6-year-old boy had the nerve to ask the child’s relatives to help him jump-start his truck in the City Heights neighborhood late Tuesday night, San Diego police said.

He almost got away but the family members noticed the boy lying down on the truck’s front seat and they kept the man from leaving until police arrived, authorities said.

The 52-year-old man was jailed on one count of kidnapping and one of false imprisonment.

A family gathering was breaking up shortly before midnight when the boy walked out of the house to wait for his parents by their vehicle. The stranger pulled up in a truck, got out and grabbed the boy from behind, police said.

He put the boy into his truck and told him to lie down and be quiet, police said.

But then his truck wouldn’t start, authorities said, and he asked some of the child’s relatives for help. They were trying to jump-start the truck when the boy’s parents came out, looking for him, they said.

The relatives started to ask the stranger if he would help them search for the boy, and that’s when they saw the child lying on the seat, police said.

Repard writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

pauline.repard@sduntiontribune.com

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