CANTON (WWJ) -- Canton Police say there was no attempted kidnapping at a local park this week, despite claims presented in a TikTok video that went viral.
According to the Canton Police Department, a teenage girl posted a video to the popular social media platform alleging that someone had attempted to abduct a child at a park in the township.
Canton Police Det. Lt. Michael Andes said the video spread quickly.
"It was a female that was inside her residence, and she was talking about an abduction that she had seen and/or heard about," Andes told WWJ Newsradio 950's Luke Sloan. "And we were notified this morning that this video was getting a lot of views — I think it was in the tens of thousands of views — and got multiple reports of this video and this child abduction. So, we started looking at it."
Andes said investigators were able to swiftly identify the person who posted the video as a Canton resident.
Officer went to the teen's home, spoke with her, and learned that she'd heard the story from one of her neighbors.
Upon further investigation, Andes said officers identified and then interviewed the father of the child who was reportedly involved.
Based on these interviews and a thorough review of the circumstances, Andes said: "That's where we were able to identify that these claims were false... 100% completely false."
As it turned out, the facts are that the father was at the park with his daughter when there was an incident on the monkey bars.
"And there was another parent there that was trying to, I guess, protect their child that was falling off the money bars," Andes said. "There was no touching, there was no attempted abduction."
Andes said this was a misunderstanding that devolved into what he described as a game of telephone. "That parent went and told a neighbor, who then told another neighbor, who then told this TikTok person. So, there were some things that were lost in translation — probably some embellishment as well — and that's how the TikTok video came out," Andes said.
Andes said there will be no charges filed against any of the parties involved.
The woman did agree to take the video down, and said she would post a follow-up video explaining what actually happened.
The takeaway here, Andes said: "We just want to make sure that the community doesn't believe that there's someone out there on the loose that's trying to, you know, kidnap children out there in Canton."
And, in the future, if you do see or hear about something suspicious, you should contact police. Don't go home and make a TikTok video.
The Canton PD added, in a statement: "We thank the community for its continued vigilance as we know incidents like these can occur. The Canton Police Department encourages residents to report any suspicious activity directly to the police so it can be properly investigated."