An Oregon park outing turned chaotic after a naked man was accused of trying to grab a 7-year-old girl

A quiet afternoon at a Portland park turned terrifying on July 11 when a naked man allegedly tried to snatch a 7-year-old girl away from her mother in broad daylight. Panicked callers flooded 911 within minutes of each other, describing a chaotic and rapidly escalating scene near the water.

The first call came in about a naked man running loose near the park. Moments later, a second caller said he’d tried to punch them. Then came the report that changed everything: he had grabbed a young girl and was trying to pull her away from her mother. Police arrived to find the man, later identified as 31-year-old Daniel C. Vasey, wading naked in the adjacent river. He was arrested on the spot, and the girl was checked out and found to be physically unharmed.

What officers pieced together afterward was even more unsettling. According to True Crime News, the girl and her family were visiting Oregon from out of state, simply spending time at the park, when the man allegedly approached and grabbed the child. Her mother refused to let go, holding the girl’s other arm as the two adults struggled, and at one point the child was reportedly lifted off the ground during the tug-of-war.

This could have ended very differently without those strangers 

That’s when nearby parents and bystanders jumped in, hitting, punching, and slapping the man until he loosened his grip. One bystander even sprayed him with an irritant before he broke free and fled the scene. This frightening encounter is another reminder of how quickly incidents involving children can escalate in public places. In another unrelated case, four New York daycare workers were arrested amid a $10 million child abuse lawsuit over their alleged treatment of young children. 

Emilio Zamora, one of the first people to dial 911, described the moment to local station KOIN. “Naked guy had come up and grabbed the little girl, and I heard her screaming, and I saw the mom come up trying to push him off of her and hitting him a couple times,” he said. He added that the ordeal “must have been really scary for that little girl as well.”

The suspect was booked into jail and now faces a stack of charges: attempted first- and second-degree kidnapping, first-degree custodial interference, third-degree assault and harassment. Oregon Live reports he has no prior criminal convictions in the state, which makes the sudden, violent nature of the incident all the more jarring for the family involved. 

Fortunately, the 7-year-old was not physically injured, and the quick actions of her mother and nearby strangers helped bring the ordeal to an end. This incident also echoes another recent kidnapping case in Michigan, where a 16-year-old girl managed to escape after a stop at a gas station gave her the opportunity to seek help.