SEQUIM — A Sequim woman said Tuesday that her 10-year-old son was attacked and barely escaped an abduction attempt on Monday.
Christina Arriola said that on Monday evening her son bit the hand of a masked man trying to pull him into a van in an alley in the 300 block of West Pine Street and ran screaming from him.
Police are investigating, said Sequim Chief Bill Dickinson.
“At this point, we have not found any evidence to either support or not support the report, so the investigation continues,” Police Chief Bill Dickinson told the Peninsula Daily News.
“Everything doesn’t line up real well, so we’re investigating it pretty critically to try to figure out what the real story is here.”
Dickinson called for calm.
“I am not alarmed that we have a kidnapper in our neighborhoods,” he said.
“We haven’t had anything else like this around here” of late.
Arriola said her son was playing in Margaret Kirner Park at Fourth and Pine streets with other children a little before 8 p.m. when he saw the family cat dart down the alley and went after it.
There, as her son was picking up the cat, he was accosted by a man in dark-colored van, possibly with purple rims, Arriola said.
“The guy put a ski mask over his face, grabbed him and put his hand over his mouth. He had a knife in his hand and tried to push him into the van.”
Her son bit the man’s hand, struggled away from him and ran screaming from the alley to the park, she said.
Crying, he told his friends what happened, Arriola said.
A neighbor called 9-1-1 emergency dispatchers and Arriola went to the park.
“My son was crying and shaking,” she said. “He had tear streaks running down his face.”
Older children at the park told her that the van took off, turning right on Third Avenue.
The boy said that the man had tattoos on his arms and was wearing black shirt and pants with white shoes.
He was older, but the boy did not know how old, his mother said, adding that he did see his face briefly before the man pulled down the ski mask.
“He said he was fat,” she said.
Arriola immediately posted this to Facebook:
“Dark mini-van, possible purple rims, man in mask tried taking my son at knife point. Police here now!! Please help lookout for this guy!”
Arriola said that others on Facebook said they have seen a dark van with purple rims in Port Angeles and Forks.
A description of the man and vehicle are not currently available because of witness inconsistencies, Dickinson said.
The boy described the vehicle as it was listed in the Facebook post, “but . . . other kids said they did not see a vehicle,” Dickinson said.
Additionally, “the juvenile gave us a description of a person, [while] another juvenile gave us a different description of the person.”
And “they both described their versions as leaving in different directions, so we are trying to follow up on all of those things and find any possible reasons for why this may or may not have happened.”
Police searched the area Monday night and Tuesday for suspects and evidence, but none turned up, Dickinson said.
“We have spent all day [Tuesday] talking to every neighbor, every kid that was in the area — extensively interviewing everyone around [and] searching for any possible evidence — and we are not finding any of those thing at this time,” Dickinson said.
But while “we have not been able to find any evidence to support the report . . . that doesn’t mean it did not happen,” Dickinson noted.
“We take the report at its face value when it is reported to us and then we investigate, so that is what we are doing. We continue to investigate.”
Arriola said that her son told the same story four times to police.
She said that discrepancies are because one child is “mentally slow” and gave different descriptions.
The police “are working very, very hard,” she said, but she feels they do not think the attack was “a random act of violence.”
“They don’t want the town and people getting upset,” she said.
In light of this incident, Dickinson encourages parents to take measures to protect their children.
“If you want your kid to be as safe as possible, know where they are, what they are doing and who they are with,” he said.
