Prosecutors are not charging a 44-year-old Wapato man accused of trying to kidnap a baby from a Yakima Walmart parking lot — for now.
Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Brusic said his office wants to review security camera footage from the parking lot before making a formal charging decision.
Under state law, prosecutors must file criminal charges within 72 hours of someone's arrest.
The order that no charges will be filed, which was submitted to the court Tuesday, leaves the door open for prosecutors to proceed if additional evidence is secured.
Authorities released the man from the Yakima County jail, where he had been held since Feb. 2, Tuesday. He had been held in lieu of $30,000 bail.
The Yakima Herald-Republic typically does not name criminal suspects until they are formally charged.
A woman told Yakima police that she was standing outside her vehicle tending to her 4-month-old son at the 1600 E. Chestnut Ave. Walmart when the man approached her and started asking questions about the baby, according to a probable cause affidavit.
She tried to push the man away and told him to leave, the affidavit said, but she said the man made a fist and grabbed her arm while trying to get to the child's car seat. At one point, she took out an electric stun gun and told the man that she would shock him, the affidavit said.
The woman's mother said when she tried to push the man away, he also made a fist as if he were about to hit her, the affidavit said. The man finally left, saying, "I wasn't doing anything," after a bystander came over when the woman's mother yelled for help, the affidavit said.
Police arrested the man in the parking lot and booked him into jail on suspicion of attempted second-degree kidnapping, fourth-degree assault and harassment.
