LAPD arrests man after carjacking a vehicle with a 7-year-old child in the backseat

Los Angeles police arrested a man Thursday accused of carjacking a pickup truck in the Mid-Wilshire area with a 7-year-old boy in the backseat.

Police have identified the suspect as 25-year-old Nicky Jace. LAPD says Jace has been booked on suspicion of carjacking and kidnapping.

The child is safe. Police say the child was taken to the police station in Wilshire and reunited with the father.

The carjacking was reported at about 3:07 p.m. near the area of Wilshire Boulevard and S. Orange Grove Avenue, police said. The suspect was last seen driving eastbound on Wilshire Boulevard in a 2001 gray Chevy Silverado.

That Silverado was later found abandoned on Elm Drive in Beverly Hills.

A man claiming to be the boy's relative said the father stopped to get something to eat, which angered the suspect leading to the suspect reportedly punching the boy's father in the head and taking off in the pickup truck with the child still in the backseat.

LAPD describes the suspect as a 45-year-old white man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, dark brown pants, dark dress shoes, and sporting a tattoo of a rose on his right arm.

Police say the suspect also stole a cell phone. No further details were immediately known.