California police have shot dead a crazed man as he beat and stomped a child to death on a dark country road.
Members of the public alerted police on Saturday night after seeing the man pull the boy, aged between one and two, from his car seat and unleash a brutal bashing beside the vehicle.
At least one member of the public tried to stop the attacker.
"In the shadows and light it looked like he had hit an animal," said fire department official Dan Robinson, who came upon the scene on his way home.
"As we backed up again, I could see that he had blood on his arms. I could see that it was a small child."
Robinson jumped from his vehicle and confronted the man, who lunged at him. Robinson said the man wasn't screaming and wasn't loud, but was forceful, saying "demons" were in the boy.
"There was a total hollowness in his eyes," Robinson said, "like I could see right through to the back of his head."
A police helicopter was on patrol in the Turlock area of California, and was at the scene within six minutes of the emergency calls coming in.
"The helicopter spotlights the scene and sees this guy just beating on this infant or baby in the middle of the road. I can't imagine what that looked like," the sheriff's spokesman Royjindar Singh said.
The chopper landed in a nearby field, where police ordered the man to stop beating the child.
But when the man "continued to stomp the child" the officer fired and shot the attacker dead, Singh said.
The child was rushed to the Emanuel Medical Centre in Turlock, where he was pronounced dead.
Authorities would not disclose the identity of the dead man or his relationship to the boy.
Singh said the boy was between one and two years old. DNA testing may be required to formally identify him because he was beaten beyond recognition.
The violence, Singh said, was so graphic from the helicopter's birds-eye view that there was no hesitation on the part of the officer who shot the man dead.
