Man With Knife Tried to Abduct Child in Fairfax County, Police Say

A man tried to abduct a child on a residential street in the Lincolnia neighborhood of Fairfax County, Virginia, Wednesday evening, police say.

The suspect went up to a group of kids who had just gotten off of a school bus, showed them a knife and grabbed one of them by the hand in the 5000 block of Caryn Court, Fairfax County police said. The location is in the Alexandria portion of the county.

When the child broke free from his grasp, the man ran off, police said. Then, officers found the suspect nearby and arrested him.

It's unclear exactly when attempted abduction happened, but Fairfax County police said at 6:30 p.m. they were at the scene.

Police have not yet released the name of the suspect.

The child was not hurt.

The street where the incident took place is in a well-populated area of Lincolnia off of Little River Turnpike, not far from Fairfax County's border with the city of Alexandria.

"This is totally shocking because I have a 2-year-old son, too, and I won't be thinking the same now," one neighborhood father, Asad Khan, said. "This is unbelievable, like, a kidnapping in this area?"

Neda Abdurazak, a local mother, agreed.

"I have kids of my own and I'm scared that my kids would go out and something like this would happen to them," she said.

Residents are calling on property managers to step up security in the area.

"I will talk to the management as well [and ask] what steps they're going to take now since this happened. Are they going to put some cameras, some gated community, something like that. Because this is not a joke, this is pretty serious," Khan said.

Others said they moved to the neighborhood because it was safe and family-friendly. Now, they're thinking twice.

"It's still scary to know that something like this could happen when all our kids are playing outside all the time," Abdurazak. "We wouldn't let our kids — I wouldn't let my kids go out now. I'd be more cautious."