Jacksonville, FL — We’re getting new insight on the “incident” at the Avenues Mall that involved a young child on Thursday.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office went public asking for the community's help locating two people on Thursday, in connection to what they referred to as an incident with a juvenile. We were told that a child became separated from its family at the playground at the mall, and was later located in the presence of two people, who police wanted to identify.
The incident report we’ve now obtained shows the investigation started as a call about a possible attempted kidnapping. Police say a 3-year-old disappeared from the playground, and the child’s mother reported that she found him with an unknown woman, who was holding his arm. The mother and another woman who was helping her grabbed the boy and walked away, without speaking to the woman, according to the report.
JSO says surveillance footage shows the child wandering around the mall, walking alone. An additional witness reported to police that he had seen the child with a man and woman.
Police are still trying to locate the man and woman who the child was apparently located with. The woman is described as a black woman in her mid 20s with long, curly hair. She was dressed in green camo and boots, which appeared to be current Army fatigues, and she reportedly spoke to someone about her rank in the military. The man is described as a black man in his early 20s with muscular build, who was wearing a gray sweatshirt.