A 35-year-old Ottawa man faces charges of trying to kidnap a six-year-old girl in the West Island of Montreal.
The incident happened at around 2:30 p.m. Sunday, according to police.
The girl and her mother were shopping in a Walmart in Kirkland at the corner of St. Charles Blvd. and Chemin Sainte-Marie.
The mother let the girl out of her sight for a moment, and that's when police say the man grabbed the girl.
"The suspect was pulling the hair and the arm of the little girl and she heard him say something like, 'Come with me,' ... so with all that, we think it was an attempted abduction," said Montreal police Const. Olivier Lapointe on Sunday.
She cried out, getting her mother's attention, and she too began screaming for help.
The man tried to escape but was stopped by police outside the store.
When police checked, they found a warrant for the arrest of the man. Included in the warrant is transportation back to a psychiatric hospital in Ottawa.
"It only takes a few seconds for a young child to disappear," said Pina Arcamone with the Missing Children's Network Canada. "It's very important that young children under the ages of seven are always under the supervision of a trustworthy adult. This is not to say that the mom in yesterday's incident was negligent in any way, but remember, that is just takes a few seconds for a child to wander off and loose sight of his mom."
