In what West Virginia police are calling an “overreaction,” a woman who pulled a gun on a man she accused of trying to abduct her daughter has completely recanted her story, calling it a possible “cultural misunderstanding.” In a press conference Tuesday, Barboursville Police Sgt. Anthony Jividen announced the news with something resembling a straight face and nothing resembling contrition. The wrongly accused man, a 54-year-old Egyptian national in town on business, required an Arabic translator when he was arrested, arraigned, forced to surrender his passport, and held on $200,000 bond within seven hours of the crime that did not happen—as well as subjected to a widely publicized perp walk.
Why? Because he patted a 5-year-old girl on the head, and smiled.
Let’s rewind.
Police were called Monday to the Huntington Mall in Barboursville, a town of 4,000 near the city of Huntington, after a still-unnamed woman called 911 and said a man tried to kidnap her daughter in an Old Navy.
Note: Local outlets are (unfortunately) deleting original coverage, so this link (and others) may not stay functional.
According to the criminal complaint, a mother was shopping with her daughter in the Old Navy store (at 6:17p.m.) when the suspect approached them.
The complaint says the suspect "grabbed the child by the hair and attempted to pull her away," and then the little girl "dropped to the floor with the male still pulling her away."
Police say the mother then pulled out a handgun and told the suspect to let go of the child. The mother told police the man then let go of the girl and ran out of the store into the mall.
Police say a short time later, officers and mall security spotted the suspect walking near the food court, where he was taken into custody.
The mother and the daughter both gave statements, and by 1 AM the man—who will not be identified here since he’s no longer charged with a crime—had been arraigned on a felony charge of attempted abduction and held on a $200,000 bond. It wasn’t until the next morning that authorities viewed security footage, which, as Jividen politely put it, “revealed some inconsistency” in the woman’s story. Additionally, no witnesses to the incident could be found, so police asked the woman to return for more questioning at 1PM.
During the interview with the mother, detectives say they discovered more inconsistencies to the original statement. She eventually told detectives that she might have misjudged the suspect’s actions, overreacted to the uninvited touching of her daughter, and misinterpreted the intentions of [the man].
The mother also told police the more she thought about it, the more she realized it might have been a cultural misunderstanding and [the man] might have just been patting her daughter on the head and smiling.
As of 6 PM, Cabell County prosecutor Corky Hammers was working to “reduce” the man’s bond. Sgt. Jividen, however, says the man could still face charges.
There is still, as we said, an uninvited touching of a child.
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The uninvited touching comes to the level of battery, a simple battery of somebody.
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The prosecutor is working on releasing or amending the charges as we speak.
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The charges going forward will be in his hands.
No word on whether the still-unidentified woman will face charges for waving a gun in Old Navy, abusing 911, causing a panic, wasting police resources, or making multiple false reports to police.
It’s pretty easy to understand why the man ran away: A stranger was waving a gun at him. But why was he so swiftly arrested, charged, and held, long before there was evidence beyond the gun-waving mom’s version of events?
Reporters at the press conference were fairly unforgiving of the police response, asking if kidnapping suspects typically hang out at food courts after being foiled, and how many kidnappings the force has investigated (zero). When asked how things will be made right about the vilification of the man, Sgt. Jividen blamed social media and insisted the police did a good job.
But did they? Did anyone in the system really do their job? It’s undeniable that nobody wants strangers touching their children, even in a friendly way. That’s startling. Yet because police didn’t bother to review security footage until the morning, this man was subjected to arrest, humiliation, and a night in jail—all from the other side of a language barrier.
The woman should face charges, but the police aren’t off the hook, either. They should have to answer for taking the lying woman’s word for it when she said why she waved a gun around an Old Navy.
When asked if guns were banned in the shopping mall, Jividen said that some doors have signage prohibiting firearms, but some don’t, so he couldn’t answer the question.
WCHS reports that a Huntington Mall manager says guns are indeed permitted in the shopping center.