Search for driver halted

Police said Friday they are no longer looking for a man who tried to lure a 7-year-old boy into a car in a Costa Mesa neighborhood.

After learning through the media the incident had been reported to police, the man told police he was picking up another child in the area when he mistook the boy for someone else, Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Marty Carver said.

Police detectives interviewed the man and determined that it was a case of mistaken identity, Carver said.

The boy had told his mother that a man told him to “hop in the back seat” of a mid-’80s panel van at 8:20 a.m. Tuesday at Bermuda Drive and Labrador Drive.