Suspect who allegedly stole car with baby inside arrested

A suspect whose nickname is "Turtle" allegedly carjacked a car with a baby inside and when he realized it, dumped the boy on the side of the road in San Jose, police said. The boy was later reunited with his family in San Jose.

The suspect, identified Raymond Randy Guiteirrez, 52,  was taken into custody in Salinas later Monday morning, according to Soledad Deputy Police Chief Damon "Chuck" Wasson. Details on his arrest were not immediately known. Salinas police spotted the stolen Honda during a traffic stop and brought him in, Wasson said.

An Amber Alert was issued Monday morning for a 1-year-old boy named  Emiliano Salinas  who was abducted at 4:47 a.m. His father left him in the car in Soledad while he ran in to get the boy's baby bottle, which is when the white Honda was stolen.

A woman named Mamas Ramierez told KTVU that Guiteirrez, whose nickname is "Turtle," was in Soledad because he has family there. When he realized there was a baby inside the stolen car, he left the boy in the car seat on the side of the road, near an industrial area near the San Jose Market Center at Walnut and Seymour in San Jose about 7 a.m., police said.

Ramierez, who lives nearby, spotted the baby and convinced a construction worker to call police. "I just knew that wasn't his baby," she said. " II mean, he stated, 'just take the baby and let me get out of here.'"

Wasson said he called the baby's family immediately and they were reunited in San Jose before noon. "This is a win for us," he said, adding that this is the second time within a year or two that a parent had left a child unattended in a running car.

 

KTVU's Jesse Gary and Lisa Fernandez contributed to this report.