Stranger Lured 2 Kids From Homes In N. Minneapolis
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - Parents in North Minneapolis are on edge after a man lured two boys away from their neighborhood Sunday afternoon.
Neighbors say they saw a stranger approach two 5- and 11-year-old boys and then walk with them away from their homes.
"This guy just popped up and started talking to these two kids," neighbor Shan Johnson said.
Johnson saw the man first.
He was looking out his window Sunday morning when he noticed a stranger talking to the two boys, who had been playing in the front yard across the street.
"We didn't recognize the man, and we knew the boy's dad," Johnson said. "We knew both little boys' fathers."
Alarm bells went off when Johnson saw the man hand the boys something and then walk them down the alley out of sight.
"I went across the street to my neighbor's house to inform them their son had been taken by a stranger that nobody knew on the block," Johnson said.
"Man, I was scared," Stephanie Reynolds said. "My heart dropped. I didn't know what to do."
Reynolds' 5-year-old grandson Ja-Shaun was one of the missing boys.
He was with Dinah Shaw's 11-year-old son, Damien.
"Nobody had seen him before," Shaw said. "We'd never seen him around here."
A 911 call was made and family members and neighbors worked the streets looking for the boys.
The search party included Johnson and his upstairs neighbor.
"We got right where the parking lot was and he was walking with both kids with him," Johnson said.
The parking lot was at a Baptist church at 23rd and Girard.
The man took off running inside and Johnson and his neighbor gave chase.
They tried to talk to the 31-year-old man.
"He said he didn't do anything wrong," Johnson said. "I said if you didn't do anything wrong, let's go back outside and talk to the parents. You can clear it up. But he wouldn't come with me."
Police eventually arrived and arrested the man.
He told officers he needed the boys to help him find his girlfriend's house.
But family members aren't buying it.
"My grandson said he had a knife to both of them. He was scared so they went with him," Reynolds said.
"Just relief, just thank God," Shaw said. "I'm so glad that nothing happened to him."
Family members say the man also gave both boys a dollar to walk with him.
There was a warrant out for his arrest for a prior trespassing charge.
He was taken into custody and police say this investigation is on-going, but so far the man has not been charged with a crime.
