Toronto — It had all the makings of a parent's worst nightmare, but the snatching of a young boy on a downtown street Tuesday ended up being just a case of a kid squabbling with his dad over a pair of shoes.
Bystanders on a Toronto street immediately called police Tuesday morning when they saw a young boy dragged away kicking and screaming by a man. Police were told the boy was yelling: “No, no, let me go. I don't know you!”
Although they had no reports of a missing child, police issued an Amber Alert — advising the media to broadcast a description of the possible missing child — shortly after being advised of the apparent abduction.
The boy was described as about age 9, with red hair, and wearing a red jacket with blue trim and carrying a red-and-blue backpack. Police also issued a release giving a description of the possible abductor — a man described as between 30 and 40 years old, five-foot-11, with a heavy build, clean-shaven and wearing a bomber jacket.
All ended well when the mother of the boy called police after recognizing a description of her son through the media.
The furor was simply the result of the child fighting with his dad because he didn't want to wear a certain pair of shoes to school, said Toronto police detective Pat McGrade. “The child didn't want to go to school this morning,” he told reporters.
Det. McGrade said high-profile child abductions — including the snatching and subsequent murders of young Holly Jones and Cecilia Zhang in the past year — played a role in police reacting quickly to word of a possible missing child.
“Perhaps because of things that have happened in the past, we made the decision we weren't going to wait,” Det. McGrade said about the police decision to activate the rarely used Amber Alert.
“We weren't sure what it was,” he said. “That's why we took the steps that we did, that's why we put it out to the Amber Alert, and through the Amber Alert we were able to resolve it very quickly.”
Police wouldn't release the name of the parents or the child.
