NEW YORK (WHDH) - A family is shaken up following a terrifying encounter with a man who attempted to kidnap a 3-year-old girl in New York City’s Bronx borough on Monday afternoon.
Surveillance video captured the young girl about to cross East Tremont Street with her grandmother and two brothers just after 1 p.m. when 27-year-old Santiago Salcedo, who was wrapped in a blanket, picked the girl up and tried to run away with her.
The grandmother chased after him as the girl’s brothers stood by terrified.
“Of course she yelled at the guy to stop and to give us my little daughter,” the girl’s mother told WLNY. “He dropped her after a couple of steps; other people who were at the station were really responding.”
Gas station attendant Fermin Bracero was one of those people.
“He must have gotten scared or something, dropped the girl, put the little girl down, and just walked away like nothing,” he said.
Bracero says he and other good Samaritans began looking for Salcedo, who allegedly fled on a scooter before ditching it and walking away.
Officers found him about a mile away sleeping in the doorway of a bar, police said.
Salcedo was silent but smiling as officers walked him out of a police precinct in handcuffs.
He faces several charges, including kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.
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