Church kidnap story turned false

Oregon Faith News Note:

Lane County prosecutors dropped kidnapping charges against Azoulas Yurashunas after he was previously charged for luring a boy away at a Church outdoor event to his car.  Azoulas provided a different side to what onlookers saw.   He says he saw the boy hurt himself and was trying to help him return him to his mother.   It was not long before a worried onlooker intervened.  Azoulas left, and soemone called the police on him.

Azoulas told the Register Guard “I thought that if I just told them what happened, surely they’d see it was a misunderstanding,”.  The police did not see his side and instead held him in jail for three days.   Azoulas said.”I am an innocent man who was accused of a diabolical crime.” and then spoke on how he may sue the police for mishandling the incident.
“I was not luring him, I was not taking him away, I wasn’t taking him anywhere,” Yurashunas said. “There was no crime, there was no luring. It was a lost child and I went and stood next to him.”  As an Eagle Scout he was simply trying to help.

The incident is case of different perspectives and the societal balance between caution and excessive prosecuting.

Katu reported on the background of the case,“At that event a Eugene Police crime prevention specialist and a nearby woman “observed a commotion involving a woman calling out for her missing child” and saw a man “luring her 2-year-old child away,” according to a press release distributed by the Eugene Police Department after Yurashunas’ arrest.The woman grabbed the child, Yurashunas got into his car and the Eugene officer radioed in his description and direction of travel. Yurashunas was stopped and arrested a short time later.  More on the KATU story


Disclaimer: Articles featured on Oregon Report are the creation, responsibility and opinion of the authoring individual or organization which is featured at the top of every article.