News

Actions

Video shows attempted kidnapping of 4-year-old in California store

Posted at
and last updated

(CNN Newsource) Have you seen this terrifying video out of California? A man attempted to kidnap a 4-year-old girl and it was all caught on camera. The girl's mother managed to pull her daughter away from the man.

Security video shows a young mother come into a cell phone store carrying an infant while her 4-year-old daughter plays with a candy machine.

The store's owner says the woman told him she had noticed a strange man in the parking lot.

“She had said that the guy was looking at her from when she got out of her car but she didn't think he would follow her,” Miguel Macias, the store’s owner said.

But he did… and quickly grabbed the girl by the arm. The mom ran after him.

“She was just screaming, crying she couldn't believe it,” Macias said.

The mom and another customer ran out and the girl managed to break free, clinging to her mother's leg.

“She was crying, she wasn't screaming, she was really terrified,” Craig Battles, who witnessed the incident, said.

Battles was cutting hair next door and ran out when he heard the commotion.

“He ran so when he ran, we all like me, my clients, we were cutting hair, we all ran around there to see what was going on."

Other witnesses say the man then sat in traffic.

“I saw him sit down in the middle of the street… then he got up and started running again,” (Stella Moriel, the phone store’s co-owner said.

Witnesses say that's when people nearby tackled him and held him until police came. Police say the suspect, who was arrested, has been identified as Terry Ransom.

The store owner and his wife have a 6-year-old and say this has reminded them to always be on alert. “Knowing it could have easily been my daughter if I had brought her to work with me,” Moriel said.