An Oregon woman recounted the moments she punched a stranger in the face as he tried to abduct her child.
Scottie Grimes told police and local news outlets that she was preparing to take her child to preschool on Tuesday, April 29, when the attempted kidnapping happened.
She said that around 8 a.m. that morning, she briefly left her 23-month-old daughter, Sonnet, outside in a stroller near the side of her home while she stepped inside to gather her belongings.
She said she was inside her house for less than a minute, but when she came back out, her child was gone. She ran out onto the street, where she saw a man pushing her daughter’s stroller down a sidewalk.
When she caught up with him, she punched him in the face.
“I just decked him in the face and was like, ‘I’m calling the cops!'” Grimes told KATU.
Grimes said the man fled after she struck him, and she recovered her child unharmed.
“I was just screaming, ‘My baby! My baby! My baby!'” the mother said. “I whipped [the stroller] over to the side to get it away from him in case he tried to make a run with my kid.”
In a news release, the Portland Police Bureau said responding officers arrived at the scene at 10 a.m. They tried to locate the suspect, but couldn’t find him. Authorities said they also couldn’t locate any security cameras in the area. The suspect is still at large.
“That’s one of the more amazing things about this that she was able to get up there and physically intervene,” Portland Police Sgt. Kevin Allen told KGW. “That’s very dangerous, but certainly as a parent, I think any of us would do the same thing.”
Police described the suspect as a Caucasian male in his 50s. He was seen wearing a black beanie, a black surgical mask, a black zip-up sweatshirt, and black jeans.
According to KOIN, Grimes posted about the incident on the social media platform NextDoor, where one of her neighbors commented that their daughter had been followed by a man in all black the same day as the attempted abduction.
Some people who commented under Grimes’ post questioned why she would leave her child outside alone, but Grimes noted that the toddler was still on her property when she was taken.
“I’m always pretty guarded, but I also do generally believe that most people are good. When things like this happen so close to home, it makes me question that,” Grimes said.
