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Baby Safe After Running SUV Stolen From In Front Of Cicero School

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Cicero police were trying to find the suspect who stole a running SUV from in front of a local elementary school, while a baby was strapped in the back seat.

It took police only 20 minutes to find the vehicle after it was stolen from in front of Liberty Elementary School at 13th Street and 50th Avenue. Police said a mother dropping her child off at the school around 8:30 a.m. left the car running, with her 1-year-old child in the back seat of her Dodge Durango, while she dropped off her preschooler.

As she was walking back to her car, she saw a man jump in the driver's seat of the Durango, and speed off down 50th Avenue, taking a right on Roosevelt Road.

Police conducted a block-by-block search, and found the Durango parked in the 1200 block of South Kildare Avenue in Chicago, about a mile away. The vehicle was still running, and the baby was still strapped in to the back seat.

"We were able to find the vehicle in Chicago here, a few blocks outside of Cicero, so luckily some good police work and some heads-up officers were able to find the car, with the infant still in it. We were able to get the infant medical attention immediately, and the infant's fine. She's been reunited with her mother," Cicero Police Supt. Jerry Chlada Jr. said.

The Illinois State Police Crime Lab was called in to process the vehicle, in an effort to find the suspect's DNA and fingerprints.

Police said the suspect was last seen running north on Kildare Avenue across Roosevelt Road.

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