Man attempted to snatch girl out of car in front of her mother

Moments after trying to snatch a nine-year-old Calgary girl from her mother’s car, a city man appeared to not know what happened, court heard Monday. Witnesses who assisted the mother and child — and police officers who arrived at the scene — described a “calm” Timothy Shaw-Zak, following the failed abduction.

“He wasn’t sure why we were there,” Const. Christopher Huggins told Crown prosecutor Doug Taylor, who took ShawZak into custody following the Sept. 7, 2017 incident. Shaw-Zak, 35, faces charges of kidnapping, forcible confinement and assault causing bodily harm in connection with the incident in a 12th Avenue S.E. parking lot, where the mother had to wrestle her child from him.

Huggins said Shaw-Zak mentioned being susceptible to seizures, but didn’t believe he’d had one that evening.

“Mr. Shaw-Zak said he has seizures sometimes, but that he did not feel like he had one recently,” the officer said.

Defence lawyer Alain Hepner earlier told provincial court Judge John Bascom his client is not disputing trying to grab the child, but intent will be an issue because the accused suffers from epileptic seizures.

The child’s mother earlier testified she and her daughter were leaving the Decidedly Jazz Danceworks studio when Shaw-Zak offered to hold the girl’s door open for her.

After the car door was closed, the mother walked around the vehicle only to hear it open again. She then saw Shaw-Zak grabbing her daughter and reached in from the driver’s side rear door to pull the girl away from him.

An eye witness, Ben Youe, said he heard the woman screaming after seeing what he thought was someone struggling to get a child in a car seat.

“There was a woman holding her child … saying, ‘Help me,’” Youe stated. “She said that man tried to take my baby, or my kid.”

Youe said he comforted the woman while another bystander, Joe D’Angelo, followed Shaw-Zak.

D’Angelo said he walked back to where the incident occurred after following the accused for about a block before Shaw-Zak returned on his own.

“The guy came back at which point we were all nervous,” Youe told Taylor.

“The young girl … started to scream saying, ‘That’s him.’”

He told Hepner that at no point did Shaw-Zak have to be physically restrained while they waited for police to arrive.

“He seemed to want to resolve something,” Youe said.

Shaw-Zak, who has been in custody since the incident, is also on trial for assaulting a police officer after his arrest.

His trial continues on Wednesday.