Possible child abduction attempt at grocery store caught on camera
HOUSTON, TX -- Police in Houston, Texas are investigating a possible attempted child abduction inside a grocery store that was caught on surveillance video.
In the video you see the mother, Florence Monauer, in a store aisle with her infant daughter in the cart next to her.
The mother turns her head away for a matter of seconds and then the video shows a man walk up to the 14-month-old and pick her up.
The man was unable to get the child out of the grocery cart seat because the little girl was strapped in.
The child's mother had a seat cover in the cart. Her daughter was strapped to the seat cover and the seat cover was strapped to the cart.
"She was attached to the shopping cart cover and I think if it weren't for that cover he probably would have taken off with her altogether," said Monauer.
Monauer grabbed her daughter out of the cart after noticing the man attempting to pick her up. Then, the video shows the man try to take the child out of the mother's hands.
According to Monauer, the man did not say anything to her during the incident. She said she heard him say to the child, "If your mom wasn't here, I would take you."
Houston police say they are looking into this case as a possible attempted abduction. The man has not been identified or charged with a crime.
Our sister station KTRK in Houston, showed the surveillance video to Beth Alberts, the CEO for Texas Center for the Missing. Alberts said while stranger child abductions are rare, abductors seem to be more brazen than before.
"We're getting better at preventing these types of things, that people that truly want to go to these measures have to be more and more desperate and more and more a risk-taker," Alberts said.
The FBI has created an app called Child ID that allows you to store photos and information about your child. If something does ever happen and you need to share that information, you can send it directly to law enforcement.
