PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Police in Portland, Oregon, are investigating a possible attempted abduction after a woman said a man took off with her child in a stroller before being confronted by the mother, authorities said.
The child was safely taken back to her home, uninjured, while the suspect is still at large, police said.
The incident happened on Tuesday morning in the city’s Mt. Tabor neighborhood. Scottie Grimes, the mother of the child, spoke with affiliate KOIN about the incident.
Grimes said she was getting ready to take her daughter, Sonnet, to preschool around 8 a.m. However, she had to pop back into home to grab a few things first. Seconds later, she looked out the window to check on Sonnet, but saw that the stroller was gone.
Grimes said she ran outside and saw a man dressed in all black walking down the street with her daughter in the stroller.
“I don’t remember everything I said because I was in panic mode. But I do remember punching him in the face. And swinging the stroller around … and yelling this like, ‘I’m going to call the cops,'” Grimes said.
The suspect fled and the child was unharmed.
Grimes was in so much shock that she didn’t call the police until two hours later.
Portland Police Bureau said officers arrived around 10 a.m. but they weren’t able to locate the suspect, nor could they find any security cameras that may have tracked him. The suspect is described as a white man in his 50s, about 6 feet tall, 250 pounds, dressed in a black zip-up sweatshirt, black jeans, a black beanie and a medical-type mask.
Grimes said she’s confident she’s seen the suspect walking around in her neighborhood before. She made a post about the incident on the social media site NextDoor. Someone commented saying their daughter had been followed by a man in all black in the same neighborhood on that same day.
Grimes said a lot of other people commented on the post, criticizing her for leaving her baby outside. She said she won’t ever do that again, but noted that her daughter was on her own property when she was taken.
Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Portland police.
