SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane neighbor jumped into action Thursday night and saved a five-year-old boy from being kidnapped from his front yard.
Police arrested 35-year-old Felix Booth the same night.
Victoria Slater told KREM 2 she know most of the families in their West Mission neighborhood. But that night, she saw someone she did not recognize talking to the five-year-old boy who lives next door.
A man she had never seen in the neighborhood, with no shoes, gave her the feeling that something was not right.
"He just seemed like very like, 'hurry up, come on let's go'," Slater said. "It was like he was trying to like get him to come off of the lawn onto the sidewalk, which I thought was kind of odd."
She said the boy started to walk away. But suddenly the man picked him up and walked away. Once she realized what was happening, Slater chased them down.
"I didn't know what to do. You see and hear about these things happening, and then like you're like, this is real, this is really happening," Slater said. "I went over there and next thing you know he puts the kid down and said 'Oh, this kid is lost, no one is going to miss him anyway.' And I was like, at that point I was super fumed."
The boy is ok and safely reunited with his mom, Alicia Fowler. She told KREM 2's Amanda Roley it was a very scary situation.
That evening, she was shopping for school supplies. Fowler said her babysitter sent her a panicked text about what happened.
"I dropped everything and ran out of there and got here," Fowler said.
Spokane police arrested the suspect that night.
Felix Booth appeared in court this afternoon for second degree attempted kidnapping. The judge set his bond at $250,000.
Fowler said she is grateful her neighbor was around to save her son.
"I'm just so grateful for Victoria," Fowler said. "Like if Victoria hadn't been there, he probably would have taken him. I was laying in bed last night and I texted her one more time, thank you so much! What if she wouldn't have been there? Nobody would have realized."