A naked Oregon man allegally attempted to kidnap a 7-year-old girl in front of her family Saturday at a waterfront park in Portland.
Daniel Vassi, 31, allegedly approached an out-of-town family visiting Tom McCall Waterfront Park around 7 p.m. and grabbed their young daughter by the arm, attempting to pull her away from her mother, the Portland Police Bureau said in a news release. The mother held onto her daughter’s other arm, and the struggle continued until the child was briefly lifted off the ground, police said.
“It was like pure terror,” Emilio Zamora, a witness who was working near the park at the time, told Fox News.
Several bystanders reportedly stepped in to help the child’s mother and father, surrounding Vassi and trying to stop the alleged kidnapping. Witnesses said they pulled him away, punched him and used pepper spray until he released the girl.
“There was at least like five people. They surrounded him,” Zamora said. “I saw him get hit in the head twice by two guys. Then I just saw him running up Salmon Street.”
The girl was safely returned to her family and checked by paramedics at the scene for scratches, police said.
Before the alleged kidnapping attempt, Zamora said he called 911 after seeing a naked man running through the park shortly before 7 p.m. He said dispatchers told him officers were handling other priority calls and that his call was placed in a queue.
Police said the first report came in around 6:50 p.m., followed about 12 minutes later by a call reporting the attempted kidnapping. Officers arrived around 7:13 p.m., finding the girl safe and Vassi in the Willamette River, where he was arrested.
PPB officials said dispatchers received about a dozen 911 calls related to the incident and attributed the delayed response to staffing shortages and officers being tied up with a domestic violence incident.
“We don’t have the appropriate amount of police officers to handle the amount of demand for police services,” Deputy Chief Brian Hughes said in a news conference Monday.
Vassi appeared in court Monday and pleaded not guilty to charges including attempted kidnapping, assault and harassment. He is being held without bail.
Vassi had been involved in an earlier incident at Mount Hood Medical Center, where officers responded to a disturbance in the parking lot, according to police, KATU reported. He was arrested and later released before he allegedly ended up at Waterfront Park.
