ST. GEORGE — Upon further investigation into a report of an alleged kidnapping attempt Wednesday at a Target retail store in St. George, police announced Friday that they determined the incident was not an attempted kidnapping.
A police report was filed Thursday of a suspicious incident that occurred Wednesday at Target, located at 275 S. River Road, involving an unidentified woman grabbing a stroller with a 2-year-old boy inside, according to the St. George Police Department.
“The initial report indicated that a woman tried to walk away with someone else’s young child, who was in a stroller,” police posted Friday on the department’s Facebook page. “This was very concerning and officers immediately began working with our detectives to view video footage and identify the other woman involved.”
After reviewing the security footage and interviewing both the mother of the child and the woman who reportedly grabbed the stroller, detectives determined that the incident was more of a misunderstanding rather than an attempted kidnapping.
“Long story short, the two women were in the same area of the store, shopping,” police said. “The second woman had reached for what she thought was her cart and mistakenly grabbed the handle of the stroller.”
As the woman was letting go of the stroller, realizing the handle was different than a shopping cart handle, the mother of the child noticed and confronted the woman, police said, noting that the woman then explained what happened, apologized to the mother, parted ways and both continued shopping.
The mother of the child posted on Facebook Thursday, urging mothers to be extra cautious at stores with their children after she said the unidentified woman tried to abduct her 2-year-old boy while she was shopping at the store.
The mother’s Facebook post quickly garnered lots of attention with nearly 1,000 comments and more than 4,000 shares.
“We live in the age of social media,” the Police Department cautioned on its Facebook post. “Information can spread like wildfire. Sometimes that information might not be relaying the whole story because it’s written based on one individual’s view and each of us interprets things in our own way.”
The mother of the child updated the Facebook post Friday with the following message:
The woman has been found and the police have questioned her. Nothing can be proved about this incident. I am 100% positive any mother in my situation would have acted the same and searched for help in identifying the woman. I want to thank the Saint George police for their diligent efforts in this situation. The public has been an amazing support and I wish I could thank anyone individually for their love and concern. This has been the most terrifying thing to experience for me and my family and am thanking my Heavenly Father that we were one of the lucky ones. I urge EVERYONE to be careful with their sweet babies when going out.
This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement and may not contain the full scope of findings.
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Twitter: @STGnews
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2017, all rights reserved.
So in other words, She’s a housewife who watches way too much daytime TV and thinks every stranger is out to grab her kid and run, and she blew the whole incident way out of proportion on good ol’ FB, and since there’s not much crime in st g we had a whole police force with nothing better to do investigating an incident that turned out to be nothing. This is a lot like that last one where the woman made up the whole story about someone trying to grab her kid at the kiddy wading pool. These women need to give FB and daytime TV a break, and our police need to be out doing traffic.
LOL, if the cops were out “doing traffic,” then people would be complaining that they should be doing “police work!”
This definitely is a LOL comment.
At least the First Amendment allow us to get some entertainment from idiots like “comments”.
No, the problem is they just don’t like to do traffic. They don’t get to be a hero doing traffic and are scared of pulling someone over that’s in their ward. They can always quickly shift from doing traffic to “real police work” when they simply get the call on their radio; it’s just not rocket science. Going out looking for make-believe kidnappers because some attention-seeking LDS housewife wanted attention on facebook just seems like a total waste of resources, but I guess it’s “funner” than doing traffic, huh?
Looks like the commenters on the first story had it all wrong. Looks like a mother thought she could get some attention on face book. Just like the last one at the water park.
Sounds like that nut job a while back from SMCC that got everyone worked up over a fake attempted kidnapping. If it’s not her then we have another attention monger posting to social media.
wouldn’t that be something if it was the same woman, hahaha
I still stand firm with my original comment!!! Nothing has changed the way I feel!!! I’m glad there is a happy outcome and the community doesn’t have to walk on eggshells, thinking there’s a possible kiddnapper out there roaming the streets!!! Comments you need to stop blaming everything on TVs and FB!!! I’m really surprised it wasn’t a handheld device you tried to blame this time!!! Lol