BANFF – An extensive Banff RCMP investigation into reports of an attempted child abduction determined the incident never happened.
Police pored over video camera surveillance after receiving a report of a potential abduction of a young girl at the Banff IGA grocery store earlier this week.
“We really appreciate the complainant coming forward with this,” said Staff Sgt. Mike Buxton-Carr, the Banff RCMP detachment commander.
“It’s very important to investigate and give the complainant an outcome, and in this case, we looked into it and are satisfied it didn’t happen.”
Reports on local social media sites suggested a middle-aged Caucasian male with greying hair tried to lure the young girl into his vehicle to look at his dog – then followed her through IGA and then home on foot.
However, RCMP say this is not what happened.
“I can say that we received a complaint of a potential that someone had attempted to lure a child at the grocery store,” said Buxton-Carr.
“Within half-an-hour of receiving the initial information, we’d seen surveillance video, and there was a fairly strong indication that the event had not occurred as described.”
Over the next few days, police continued to investigate.
Buxton-Carr said police went through more video camera footage in the area, spoke with various people, and established a timeline which ruled out the event had occurred as reported.
He said the RCMP encourages children to talk to parents and for parents to contact police on matters that need investigating.
“The child having a conversation is absolutely critical and we want parents to bring these forward so we can investigate,” said Buxton-Carr.
“If we investigate and it’s legitimate, we need to act for public safety, and if we investigate and prove the incident did not occur, that’s some level of comfort for the parents and community too.”
