CBS2 Exclusive: Family Says Man Tried To Stuff Boy, 6, Into SUV After Yankees Game
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police were looking Friday for a man who tried to abduct a 6-year-old boy who was walking home from a Yankees game with his family in the Bronx.
CBS2's Ali Bauman talked exclusively with the boy's family.
The family of five was heading out of the gates after the Yankees game on May 10. The parents were walking ahead, and when they looked back, they saw a man trying to stuff their 6-year-old son through a sport-utility vehicle window.
"He grabbed me like this," said the boy, Denis Acosta Jr., as his father demonstrated how the man put his hands over the boy's mouth.
It was Denis' first Yankees game. The family was walking to their car to go home around 9:20 p.m. when the man approached him.
"I thought he was nice -- like we were playing a game; like carrying me and telling me something," Denis said.
But soon afterward, that sense of stranger danger stuck.
"I was trying to scream but they couldn't hear me, because they were closing – they were putting their hands beside my mouth," Denis said.
Denis' 9-year-old sister, Amy, said she saw it all.
"It looked like the guy was trying to put him in the car, and get in the car and leave," Amy said.
She stood there terrified and screamed for her parents.
"I really saw him right in front of my face happening," Amy said. "I was really scared. I couldn't move. I was frozen, just staring at him."
Denis' father, Denis Acosta Sr., said when he raced up to the SUV, his son was being handed off to another man. He tried to pull his son away, but he said the attacker was insistent that he was Denis Jr.'s father.
"By that time, I jumped up to him, and hit him up, went like this to my son," Denis Sr. said as he made a grabbing motion, "and bring him to my wife."
The family told CBS2's Bauman that when they tried to walk away, the man followed – insisting Denis Jr. was his son. The family eventually found a police officer.
"The police say that he's drunk and they can't do nothing," Amy said.
Denis Jr. said he is thankful that his father came to his rescue, and terrified at what could have happened.
"Somebody like tried to steal me by putting in the car and bringing me to the house," Denis said.
Police described the would-be kidnapper as a white male about 30 years old, weighing about 190 pounds. He was last seen wearing black dress shoes, a dark sweater, and a button-down shirt underneath.
Police late Friday released a sketch of the suspect, along with surveillance video that appears to show the man carrying Denis to the black SUV.
Police were still looking for that suspect late Friday.