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A Bakersfield man was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping after he snatched a 4-year-old girl from outside her home in broad daylight and drove off, only to be chased down minutes later by the child's father, police said.

The abduction happened on a Sunday afternoon in February 2008 in a south Bakersfield neighborhood. According to the Bakersfield Police Department, the girl was playing outside when a man who had been sitting in a parked red Toyota Camry seized her and put her in the car. Neighbors who saw the man take the child called 911, and one of them wrote down the vehicle's license plate.

A neighbor, Deborah Lyle, told ABC30 that she had seen the car in the area before. "I've seen that car in this neighborhood before a number of times watching people," she said.

The girl's father pursued the Camry in his own vehicle and caught up with it at a nearby park, according to police. He pulled his daughter from the car, and residents who had followed the suspect pointed officers to a pickup truck he was hiding beneath a short distance away.

Police identified the man as Robert Perez Rodriguez, 43, and arrested him on suspicion of kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon, Sgt. Greg Terry said. Prosecutors later charged Rodriguez with five felonies, including kidnapping a child under 14, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping to commit robbery or rape. The girl was recovered unharmed.

Rodriguez never stood trial. In November 2008, a Kern County Superior Court judge found him not competent to stand trial and ordered him committed to a state mental hospital. Prosecutor Valeta Wilde said restoring his competency could take anywhere from one month to three years. "He will go to a state hospital," Wilde said.

The attached recording is a 911 call placed during the abduction, preserved in an online archive of emergency dispatch audio.