LOS ANGELES ( KTLA) — Police are looking for the hit and run driver who struck a 3-year-old girl while she was trick or treating in Los Angeles. The unidentified child was hospitalized in stable but critical condition. She was struck at the corner of 77th Street and Stanford Avenue in the Florence-Graham area of Los Angeles about 6:45 p.m. Sunday. The toddler was following a 5-year-old girl across the street when she was hit by a red Toyota. Her mother was also struck in the hand, but was not seriously hurt. Witnesses said the driver never even slowed down.

LOS ANGELES ( KTLA) — A 5-year-old boy is in grave condition after he was shot while sitting in the backyard of a South Los Angeles home with family members. The shooting was reported around 2 p.m. Sunday in the 1000 block of E. 84th Street, according to LAPD homicide detectives. The boy and two family members were sitting in the yard when two suspects walked along the alley behind the home and opened fire. The boy was said to have been struck in the back of the head. He was fighting for his life at a local hospital. His identity was not released.

SALT LAKE CITY | Eight years after he’s accused of slicing through a kitchen window screen with a knife and whisking away a young girl in the middle of the night, the man charged in the abduction of Elizabeth Smart is headed to trial in federal court. Jury selection in the trial of Brian David Mitchell is scheduled to begin Monday in Salt Lake City’s U.S. District Court. After years of delays driven by questions about Mitchell’s mental health and a jump from state to federal court, the trial of the one-time itinerant street preacher should finally bring Smart’s saga to a close. Hers is a tale of loss, a family’s fears and an improbable recovery that has long riveted the nation.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A Buffalo man who police say faked his own death after getting his girlfriend’s 11-year-old daughter pregnant has pleaded guilty to first-degree rape. The Buffalo News reports that 34-year-old Edtition Thompson is expected to receive a sentence of 17 to 20 years in prison after pleading to the reduced charge last week. If he’d been convicted at trial of predatory child molestation he would have faced a mandatory life sentence.

ELLENSBURG — A 51-year-old Cle Elum pastor has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to raping and molesting a boy multiple times over six years. Kittitas County prosecutors said Friday that James Watkins’ sentence was at the top of the range for his conviction on three counts of child rape and one count of child molestation. Deputy Prosecutor Paul Sander says Watkins was arrested and charged in July after the victim came forward out of concern that Watkins was grooming another victim.

A 21-year-old Oak Harbor man is accused of raping and molesting a young girl while he was babysitting her, court documents allege. Casey Eskildsen pleaded not guilty in Island County Superior Court Oct. 25 to rape of a child in the first degree and child molestation in the first degree. Detective Laura Price with the Island County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case after an 11-year-old girl told her parents that Eskildsen had raped and molested her on a regular basis over a year’s time when she was 8 or 9 years old, Price wrote in her report. She said Eskildsen babysat her and her brothers.

LAS CRUCES – A 56-year-old undocumented immigrant and convicted drug trafficker was indicted on charges he raped and molested a child in his family over a period of eight years. Federal agents found David Juarez Carbajal in Houston in September. He has been in the Do a Ana County Detention Center since Oct. 10 on a $100,000 cash-only bond, according to the jail. A Do a Ana County grand jury formally charged him Thursday with 27 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child younger than 13; 18 counts of incest; and one count each of molestation and attempted molestation.

TARPON SPRINGS — A North Pinellas man was arrested on multiple child abuse charges Friday night. Tarpon Springs police said he went into a haunted house organized by high school students and fondled, kissed or harassed several of them. It happened about 10 p.m., police said, during an event organized by the Tarpon Springs High School drama club. Police would not disclose the location, but said it was not a private home. They could not say if any of the five victims, ages 12 to 18, were members of the drama club.

Clerical sex abuse victims from across the world on Sunday took their calls for justice from Pope Benedict XVI to the doors of the Vatican itself. Close to a hundred protesters _ victims of abuse and their families _ gathered in Rome before leading a candle-lit vigil to the edge of St Peter’s Square on which they will leave personal messages for the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. The US group behind the event, Survivor’s Voice, said the victims had not been given permission to enter the square as a group, but would attempt to go in small numbers to leave letters and stones to mark their visit. “This isn’t an attack on faith or religion, it’s about behaviour and ethics,” said Marco Lodo Rizzini, a spokesman for child victims of abuse from Italy’s Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf.

Critical injuries stemming from the abuse of two Clovis infants are in line with a statewide trend of increased severity in abuse cases. “What we’re experiencing now is an increase in cases that the abuse is more severe,” said Romaine Serna, spokeswoman for New Mexico’s Children Youth and Families. “Recently we’ve seen some kids with some pretty serious injuries; it’s cause for concern.” Overall, she said statewide child abuse statistics haven’t spiked, just the severity of injuries. Though doctors gave him a poor prognosis for surviving, police say a 6-month-old boy remains hospitalized and is undergoing physical therapy following ongoing abuse.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville father was arrested Saturday night for child abuse after police said they found his baby on the side of a Southside street.A neighbor called police to the 3200 block of Dorothea Road, where they found the child inside a stroller in a ditch. The baby, named Larry, was alone but unharmed.A little later, police said they arrested 25-year-old Stephen Broughman on suspicion of leaving the baby alone.

In an incident sure to lend fire to the ongoing debate about whether or not video games encourage real-world violence, a grisly murder in Canada has been linked back to the popular online game World of Warcraft, where the two teenage perpetrators reportedly planned and then bragged about their crime.

The two British Columbia teens, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, pleaded guilty Wednesday to raping and murdering 18-year-old Kimberly Proctor, whose charred body was found on a hiking trail in March. The two teens, both gamers, reportedly planned the attacks with texts and online chats and later bragged about their horrific crime in World of Warcraft, even sharing links to newspaper articles detailing the murder.

CUMBERLAND COUNTY (WTVD) — It’s the one night of the year kids are encouraged to take candy from strangers, but some adults are forbidden from passing out treats on Halloween. In many communities, like Cumberland County, sex offenders are being ordered to have nothing to do with trick-or-treating. It’s called “Operation Lights Out.” It requires any sex offender on probation or parole to lock themselves inside their homes on Halloween night. Authorities say it is not a law, but a court order offenders better not violate.

Hillsboro Police arrested a Forest Grove man Thursday on charges he sexually abused children when he worked at an area bowling alley. Michael David Hasson, who worked at the Park Lanes Entertainment Center in Hillsboro, is charged with unlawfully touching female victims who were 4 or 5 years old at the time. One victim was assaulted at the bowling alley and another victim related to Hasson was assaulted in Aloha, according to Hillsboro detectives. Both crimes occurred four or five years ago, also according to police.