Babysitter allegedly leaves child in 120-degree van for 2 hours: Police

LOS ANGELES -- (KTLA) -- A caretaker was in custody after police rescued a distressed 6-year-old from a locked van inside which the temperature had climbed well above 100 degrees in Alhambra on Tuesday, officials said.

Authorities found the young boy crying and sweating profusely after being tipped off to his presence just before 2:20 p.m. by a concerned passerby, the Alhambra Police Department said in a news release.

The van's doors were locked and the windows rolled up as it sat parked in the 700 block of East Valley Boulevard while the child's babysitter ran errands and ate at a restaurant, police said.

Officers were able to pull the boy from the vehicle, which authorities said had an interior temperature of 120 degrees at the time. He had allegedly been in the car for two hours.

Paramedics responded and transported the child to a nearby hospital for treatment and evaluation, police said.

An Alhambra resident named Helen Law, 60, identified herself as the boy's babysitter as officers were searching for his parents. She was subsequently arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment, officials said.

She was being held on $100,000 bail at the Alhambra jail and scheduled to appear in court on Thursday, June 14, inmate records show.