A man tried to rip a young girl away from her mother in an attempted kidnapping that was thwarted by bystanders and captured on surveillance footage at a supermarket in Northern Italy, according to Italian State Police.
The footage published by Italian State Police on Monday, February 16, first shows the girl and her mother exiting the supermarket in Bergamo as the attempted kidnapping suspect enters the store.
The man quickly lunges at the girl and grabs her by her legs, all as her mother desperately tries to hold on to her toddler, the video shows, according to police
He is seen violently trying to yank the child away from the woman as bystanders — including the girl’s father — start to intervene, Italian State Police said in a news release, which has been translated to English.
“The woman’s resistance prevented the worst from happening until her father, the security guards, and the bystanders stopped the attacker until the police arrived,” police said.
Officers quickly responded to the incident and arrested the man, whose name was not released, according to police.
Based on “subsequent investigations, including the collection of witness statements and analysis of video surveillance footage,” Italian authorities charged the man with attempted aggravated kidnapping and aggravated bodily harm, police said.
It was unclear whether the man had retained legal counsel who could comment on his behalf.
The alleged kidnapping attempt involving the 1-and-a-half-year-old child occurred on Saturday, February 14, according to a report from Agenzia Nova, an Italian news agency. The man seen in the video was identified as a homeless Romanian man who did not have a known criminal history, Agenzia Nova reported.
The attack left the toddler, who was taken to a hospital following the attack, with a broken femur “caused by the violence used during the attempted kidnapping,” Italian State Police said.
A broken femur is a serious medical injury that can be extremely painful and take several months to heal, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
The bone, located between the hip and the knee, is the body’s “longest, heaviest and strongest bone,” the Cleveland Clinic reports online.
“It takes tremendous force to break your femur,” the Cleveland Clinic says.
The young girl is now healing at home with her mother and father, the Telegraph reported.
In an interview with Italian television, the girl’s father, who is named Matteo, said “To see your daughter in danger is dreadful,” according to the Telegraph.
“The reaction was immediate,” the father added. “You don’t think, you just act.”
“I must thank all the supermarket staff who intervened and the police, who were quick to arrive,” Matteo also said, the Telegraph reported. “My daughter is OK and she is playing despite the plaster cast she has to wear.”
“We arrested the man, took him to the police station, and took care of the child, who was taken to hospital,” Marco Cadeddu, a senior police officer, said of the kidnapping attempt, according to the newspaper. “It could have ended up being a lot worse.”
