A man in Florida was arrested following his attempt to forcibly take the child in a store. As can be seen on the store's surveillance video, the man was dragging a 13-year-old girl away from her mother.
According to a report on CBS News, The man was identified by the authorities as one Craig Bonello. The 30-year-old predator was caught on the surveillance video on Tuesday calmly pushing a shopping cart inside a Dollar General in Hernando, Florida. He then abandoned the cart and walked towards the woman.
Moments later, Bonello was seen lunging for the girl, forcibly dragging her towards the camera and through the store while the mother was pulling her back. Bonello can be seen struggling, near the front of the store, as the mother tried to pull her daughter away from him. "He was getting his butt kicked by mom," Citrus County Sheriff Jeffrey Dawsy said at a press conference Wednesday as cited on The Washington Post. Bonello finally let go and escaped. But the mother with the store manager was able to quickly flag down off-duty Deputy John Behnen.
"You can tell he searched out his victims, he stretched and he went after that child with terrible terrible motives," Dawsy said in an interview. Behnen also made a statement at a press conference on Wednesday. "When I first saw him run out of the building, I have to be honest, I just thought it was shoplifting," Behnen stressed out. But Behnen suddenly noticed that the girl's mother and the store manager alerted him to the attempted kidnapping. "I banged on the glass with my gun to try and break (it)," Behnen said. Behnen was ultimately able to open the car door and get the suspect to the ground. "He fought a little bit, but when he realized I had the upper edge, he complied with everything thereafter," Behnen further said.
On Wednesday, the suspect made his first court appearance. The mother and her child were fortunately not injured during the incident. They told the authorities that they have never met the suspect prior to the incident.
