An unidentified man who tried to kidnap a child in Portland’s Pearl District earlier last week has been linked to a “second incident,” on the same day, police say. The kidnapper attempted to grab a six-year-old boy who was walking with his father near The Fields Park on Northwest Overton Street. The father fought off the man who fled before police could find him. The boy and father were not physically hurt.
Police said the man began following a woman pushing a baby in a stroller on Northwest Northrup Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues about 2:30pm on Tuesday. The mother said she crossed the street twice before eventually confronting the man and snapping his photograph as he walked away, “I immediately got creeped out,” the woman wrote.
“The report increases our concern that this suspect may have been in the neighborhood for a while targeting other victims,” police said in a statement about the case involving the woman and her baby. The man is described as being 20 to 30 years old, about 5-foot-1 to 5-foot-3 and heavyset. He has dark hair and was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, whitewashed jeans, a gray beanie hat with a ball on top, and black and white shoes. Police are now searching through surveillance cameras in the area to review their footage from 2 to 3:20 p.m. Tuesday.
