Attempted kidnapping of a 1-year-old, parents: We were terrified for our daughter, we didn’t immediately understand the seriousness of the situation

Attempted kidnapping of a 1-year-old in Bergamo, parents: We were terrified for our daughter, we didn’t think he wanted to kidnap her.

In Bergamo, a 47-year-old man attempted to kidnap a one-year-old girl inside a supermarket by grabbing her leg and breaking her femur. The shocked parents reacted immediately and, with the help of security staff, managed to stop the attacker until the police arrived. They expressed both their shock and gratitude to those who helped them.

The supermarket doors opened, the mother walking hand in hand with her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter toward the exit, and the father nearby with the shopping cart. Nothing suggested that moments later a stranger would rush forward in an attempt to abduct the child. “They were tense moments; we are very shaken,” the parents told police after the attacker’s arrest. A 47-year-old Romanian man, not a resident, is being held in prison by order of prosecutor Giulia Angeleri, pending questioning to confirm the arrest.

“We didn’t immediately understand the seriousness of the situation. More than a kidnapping, we thought he wanted to hurt her,” Corriere della Sera reports.

Why the 47-year-old targeted the child and pulled her by the leg, breaking her femur, is one of the questions police are trying to answer. The family did not know him. “I realized that a person’s instinct is survival. Seeing your daughter in danger was terrifying, and the reaction was immediate. You don’t think you act,” added the girl’s father, Matteo.

Everything happened on Saturday around lunchtime, in about thirty seconds terrifying moments captured by Esselunga’s surveillance cameras. “The supermarket was crowded; you don’t expect something like this,” the father continued, saying he initially thought the man had bent down to tie his shoes. As soon as he entered, the man crossed paths with the family, grabbed the girl by the leg and lifted her while the mother tried to hold on to her. The father rushed toward the suspect, who is accused of attempted kidnapping aggravated by the victim’s age as well as aggravated assault. The child, whose leg was placed in a cast, has been released from the hospital. “I can say it ended as well as it could in such misfortune,” the parent said, thanking those who intervened. “Today our daughter is smiling, in a cast, and playing.”

By striking the 47-year-old in the back, the father managed to knock him to the ground, with help from supermarket security and other customers, and hand him over to police. “I heard piercing screams; the mother was shouting ‘my daughter,’” said a witness who preferred to remain anonymous. “She held the girl tightly behind her and was dragged along the ground. The man wouldn’t let go.”

When stopped by police, the 47-year-old who speaks Italian with difficulty said nothing. He had a passport and five euros in his pocket. He has no previous convictions and no known psychiatric conditions. There are only some border-control records related to his wandering.

He appears to have arrived in Bergamo only recently. Two days earlier, he had been checked by police at the entrance of a hospital emergency department, where he was seeking shelter without being aggressive. On that occasion, he reportedly asked to return to Romania by ambulance.

The attempted kidnapping is a “matter of extreme seriousness,” said Mayor Elena Carnevali, adding that it also fits into “a broader context in which we are seeing an increase in situations of vulnerability and social distress, which, however, cannot be translated into crime.” Deputy Prime Minister and minister Matteo Salvini also reacted: “Now, zero tolerance. No leniency,” he wrote on Facebook.

“KORÇA BOOM”