Authorities have released surveillance video of an alleged kidnapping attempt in a Costco parking lot in Vista, KTLA sister station KSWB reported Friday.
The incident occurred around 3 p.m. Saturday. A woman was backing her car out of a parking spot when a man opened the back door and tried to take her 2-year-old child, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department initially said.
The video shows the child’s mother, Jennifer Lawson, get out of the car and confront the man.
“He comes out of nowhere, I just see him out of the corner of my eye, walking by and looks into my window then I see him looking into Peter’s window and opens up the door,” Lawson told KSWB. “As soon as he touched that handle, I jumped out as quick as I can, pushed him a few times and then my fiancé got out.”
A crowd gathered and a confrontation between the man and the child’s father, who was also inside the the car, got physical, deputies said. An off-duty sheriff’s employee and other witnesses intervened, separating them until deputies from the Vista Sheriff’s Station arrived.
“I don’t know what he was going to do and I wasn’t going to sit in the car and see what he was going to do and neither was my fiancé,” Lawson said. “So that’s what we had to do as parents. We had to do everything to protect our kid.”
Deputies arrested 37-year-old Adam Glavinic on suspicion of attempted kidnapping and being under the influence of a controlled substance, deputies said. He was booked into the Vista Detention Facility but has since been released on bail.
“In this case, based on the video and other evidence gathered as part of our investigation, the Vista Sheriff’s Station believes there is no ongoing threat or danger to our community’s children related to this incident,” the department said Thursday in a news release. “The District Attorney’s Office is conducting a thorough and objective review of the evidence before making a determination about potential prosecution.”
