Two young women who saw an Amber Alert and set out looking for an abducted 4-year-old were instrumental in helping police quickly find the boy in Downtown Long Beach on Tuesday night.
The search was sparked when the CHP sent out an alert about the boy, who’d been taken from First Street and Linden Avenue around 5:46 p.m.
Police said the boy was in a car with one of his parents when the parent stepped away and left the car running.
“The parent returned and found that the car was stolen with the child inside,” Long Beach police said.
Reagan Dunn and Yenni Lu — both 20 — said they were in Long Beach “just hanging out” when the Amber Alert hit their phones.
“We had nothing else to do so, we were like, hey let’s go look,” Dunn said.
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They drove around Downtown and, to their surprise, they quickly spotted a Honda Accord near The Pike Outlets that looked like the stolen car. They checked the license plate. It matched.
“I thought maybe I was seeing things,” Dunn said.
Lu said they didn’t see anyone around the car. They quickly called 911 and stayed to watch as officers apparently broke open the door.
Video footage from news helicopters showed what happened next. The boy emerged, appearing to be unharmed. He soon embraced a man police brought out to meet him.
With the help of Dunn and Lu, it had taken less than an hour to find the boy after the Amber Alert went out.
Police didn’t have any information available on the suspect or suspects, but Lu said there appeared to be plenty of security cameras around The Pike, so she’s hoping police can find whoever took the car and ditched it, but, overall, she and Dunn are just glad the boy is safe.
The whole experience, Lu said, still feels surreal.
“I was pumped with adrenaline the whole time,” she said.
Michael Lozano contributed to this report.