Police in Laval are asking residents to be vigilant after a nine-year-old girl claims someone tried to abduct her Monday at noon.
The child was walking through a park between 44th and 45th Ave. in the Fabreville district when, she said, she was approached by a man who motioned for her to get into his car.
He was described as a white, French-speaking man in his 30s or 40s. He was driving a dark-coloured vehicle, said Laval police spokesperson Franco di Genova.
When the girl backed away from the car, the driver sped off. The child sought help from a house nearby, asking a man outside if she could borrow his cellphone, telling him she was lost and wanted to call her mother.
"I said, ‘No problem. I'm going to give you a telephone,' so she called her mother," said Luc Lamarre, who helped the girl reach her mother.
When her mother arrived moments later, she called police, who quickly began an investigation.
Police said despite fake kidnapping tales by children in the recent past, this story appears to be genuine.
"Everything that the young girl has told them seems to stand up," said di Genova. "They've checked and rechecked and everything that she told detectives does hold up."
Police are undergoing a door-to-door investigation of the area seeking clues or the suspect, he said.
"Basically what we have is a white man who spoke French who tried to put her (in his car)… what we have now is a minivan," said di Genova.
Proper reaction
The girl's reaction was shrewd, said Pina Arcamone of the Missing Children's Network.
Children should seek out the help of an adult when placed in a dangerous situation, and if the adult is a stranger, children should act cautiously, and not enter their home, said Arcamone.
"I think that we teach our children never to talk to strangers, but there are moments when they need to approach someone they've probably never seen before in their lives to help us," she said.
Laval police are asking anyone in the area who has seen any suspicious behaviour to call 450-662-INFO.
