No, these aren’t photos of a baby found dumped by a roadside in 2025; it’s a scam

Images of two police officers with a baby are spreading widely on social media thanks to Facebook posts’ tall tales and an urgent plea to people to share it on their own Facebook pages. 

“This beautiful baby boy, estimated to be between 7 months and to a year old, was found dumped by the roadside about 1 hour ago in #springfield,” a Jan. 22 post said in a group for jobs in Springfield, Illinois. “Officers have the child safe at the police station but we have no idea who the parents might be. No one has called in looking for him. IT ONLY TAKES 2 SECONDS TO SHARE.” 

But Springfield isn’t the only city where this child has reportedly been abandoned. Other posts, identical except for the location, claim he was found in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Palos Verdes, California, and Watsonville, California.

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

The original images come from a Nov. 17, 2023, post on the San Bernardino Police Department in California’s Facebook page. 

The child was indeed abandoned — a 1-month-old infant whose juvenile mother “felt overwhelmed” and like “she could no longer care safely for the baby herself,” according to the post. 

The mother left the baby in a public place where it was “found quickly,” clean and with food and diapers, the post said. Officers brought the baby back to the police department until a child and family services worker could take custody.

The Better Business Bureau has warned about these kinds of bait-and-switch scams before. They work like this: Someone is scrolling through Facebook and sees a post about, for example, a wanted serial killer or a missing child. The person shares the post. But after the person shares the post, the scammer changes the post to something such as a deceptive rental ad. 

“These bait-and-switch ads aim to either get a deposit for a rental property before the user gets a chance to see the home — or get your personal information, which could lead to identity theft,” the Better Business Bureau said in a November 2024 article on its website. “This scheme has many variations, but the commonality is the emotionality or urgency of the message that encourages concerned people to share the news with their friends.” 

Even back in 2023, the San Bernardino Police Department’s photos of the found infant were already being misused. 

“UPDATE,” the department edited the post to say. “It has been brought to our attention that these photos are circulating throughout social media, and our police patches are blurred/cropped to bait people into scams. We want to notify everyone that this baby was placed into the foster care system at the time of the incident, and there was no monetary or housing assistance needed.”

We rate claims these photos show a baby found in January 2025 False.