Newborn In Tote Bag Kidnapping Attempt At California Hospital
An attempt to kidnap a newborn baby by stuffing the child into a tote bag while posing as a nurse has shocked workers at a California hospital, and a 48-year-old woman is under arrest for the crime.
Grisel Ramirez was arrested yesterday for the tote bag baby abduction attempt, and the details of the crime are enough to prompt any mom to be a bit unnerved in any future maternity ward dealings.
According to police, Ramirez donned scrubs and posed as a maternity ward nurse in what they say was a foiled attempt to snatch the unnamed baby from the room of her mom, who has also not been identified in press.
Even more unnervingly in the tote bag baby snatch attempt is the fact that had it not been for modern security procedures, Ramirez may have gotten away with it. After the Monday arrest, police held a brief press conference to discuss the incident and confirmed that had a security sensor on the baby not alerted staff to the attempted kidnapping, Ramirez may have escaped with the newborn in the tote bag.
According to police, Ramirez is said to have entered the room and, posing as a nurse, directed the baby’s mother to take a shower so she could be examined by a doctor. With the baby’s mother occupied, the impostor nurse is then said to have shoved the baby in the purple, tie-dyed tote bag and started to flee the hospital. But as she crossed an “invisible line,” alarms sounded, alerting staff to the attempted kidnapping.
Per the AP, while Ramirez has no history of mental illness, she was linked to an incident last week that drew the attention of authorities:
“Investigators later concluded that Ramirez was the woman who walked into a hospital in Anaheim last week and asked several questions of a pregnant woman, Nightengale told KCAL-TV Monday night. The questions raised suspicions and the pregnant woman told authorities, prompting police to circulate a flier with Ramirez’s picture on it…”
Ramirez has not yet been charged in the attempted newborn kidnapping.
