By Alex Soloducha

VIDEO: Police hear conflicting stories of alleged abduction attempt

Jan 27, 2014 | 4:21 PM

Prince Albert Police are shedding more light on an alleged abduction attempt in the parking lot of the South Hill Mall on Saturday.

A Facebook post that went up this weekend described an alleged incident. It said a woman was walking into the main entrance of the mall on Saturday with three of her children. She had one in her arms, another was holding her hand, and the third was walking beside them. At that point the women looked over and thought two men were attempting to abduct her son, but she was able to quickly free him.

Cst. Shawn Rowden addressed the topic at a media conference on Monday. He said the report from the mother did not come in until several hours after the incident.
Two suspects were later taken interviewed by police in connection with the incident.

Police said the suspects’ story was very different than the mother’s. When interviewed by police the suspects said that they were pulling the boy out of the way of traffic to keep him from being hit by a car.

“The subject grabbed the child’s arm. His story was that he was trying to prevent the child from running into traffic, from getting run over [by] a car,” said Rowden.

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Police, including the major crime unit, are currently looking over the mall’s surveillance tape to verify the story. He said they have no reason to believe it is a high-risk incident.

“If the public were at risk, police would be the first to point out any precautions the public should take,” he explained.

“All parties have been very cooperative with police,” he said.

They don’t think the suspects had any connection to the family.

Charges have not been laid in the incident at this time.

Why the slow media response?

Social media started buzzing about the incident early Sunday morning, but police did not release a statement on it until late afternoon.

According to Rowden, they had trouble accessing surveillance over the weekend due to mall staff being unavailable to provide items, which slowed their response to media. Police will offer updates once the video is checked over.

He said it is important that they take their time to thoroughly investigate all angles before giving information and they do not comment on social media, due to policy.

news@panow.com

On Twitter: @alex_soloducha