SEQUIM — Police continued Wednesday to investigate a reported abduction attempt in which a 10-year-old boy was allegedly confronted by a knife-wielding man Monday in a Sequim neighborhood.
“We have four officers plus supervisors working on this case full time in an effort to gather all the facts and evidence to determine exactly what happened on Monday evening,” Sequim Police Chief Bill Dickinson said Wednesday.
“We are following up with more interviews from neighbors and witnesses.”
Police searched the area Monday night and Tuesday for suspects and evidence, but none immediately turned up, Dickinson said.
However, there is enough concern “to keep investigating to try and get to the truth of what really occurred,” he continued.
“This is a serious allegation, an attempted abduction in our town of a child. We take that real seriously. But we also want to make sure what we are doing is exactly right,” Dickinson said.
Christina Arriola, the boy’s mother, said that Monday evening, her son bit the hand of a masked man trying to pull him into a van in an alley in the 300 block of West Pine Street and ran screaming from him.
The Peninsula Daily News is not identifying the boy because he is a juvenile.
Arriola said her son was playing in Margaret Kirner Park at Fourth and Pine streets with other children a little before 8 p.m. when he saw the family cat dart down the alley and went after it.
There, as her son was picking up the cat, he was accosted by a man in a dark-colored van, possibly with purple rims, Arriola said.
The man — reportedly brandishing a knife — donned a ski mask, grabbed the boy and put his hand over the boy’s mouth while attempting to push him into the van, she said.
Her son bit the man’s hand, struggled away from him and ran screaming from the alley to the park, she said.
Crying, he told his friends what happened, Arriola said.
A neighbor called 9-1-1 emergency dispatchers, and Arriola went to the park.
Older children at the park told her the van took off, turning right on Third Avenue.
The boy said the man was fat, had tattoos on his arms and was wearing a black shirt and pants with white shoes, his mother said.
The man was older, but the boy did not know how old, Arriola said, adding that he did see his face briefly before the man pulled down the ski mask.
Police have not released a description of the man or his vehicle.
“In fact, we have differing opinions on what the suspect looked like,” Dickinson said.
The boy described the vehicle as it was listed in the Facebook post, but other children said they did not see a vehicle, Dickinson said.
And the two witnesses said the man fled in different directions.
“Only two people can identify him, and they both identify him differently,” Dickinson said.
“There is just too much conflicting information for us to have a real good idea of what really happened.”
Arriola said her son told the same story four times to police.
After the incident, Arriola immediately posted this to Facebook:
“Dark mini-van, possible purple rims, man in mask tried taking my son at knife point. Police here now!! Please help lookout for this guy!”
Arriola said others on Facebook said they have seen a dark van with purple rims in Port Angeles and Forks.
“We have communicated with [police in] Port Angeles and Forks on the van issues,” Dickinson said.
“The vehicles involved in Port Angeles and Forks are not even the same description. Those are totally unrelated. They have nothing to do with this thing at all.”
Sequim police are pulling out all the stops, Dickinson said.
“We are trying to see if we can identify anyone in the community who matches the description that the kid gave us. We are looking at any possible people in town who could possibly fit into that description,” he said.
The problem is, “I don’t know if we have an accurate description of a suspect,” Dickinson noted.
As such, “I am not going to put people out there on a wild goose chase for something that I don’t have hard information on.
“That is why I am not advocating for doing a manhunt because that is going to cause every single person with a dark-colored minivan to get pulled over by the police.”
In the meantime, “we are actually trying to find out what really happened. We don’t want to chase clues that may or may not be valid. We want to know we are chasing the right clues. At this point, we still don’t know that,” he said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
Executive Editor Leah Leach contributed to this report.
