This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

UPDATE: Police say the mom has recanted her story about pulling a gun to stop an abduction at a West Virginia mall; instead, the woman told police there may have been a “cultural misunderstanding,” saying the man may have simply been patting her daughter on the head and smiling.

**Read more, here**

BARBOURSVILLE, W.Va.— Police in West Virginia say a man was trying to abduct a child at a mall when the mother stopped him by pulling out a gun.

News outlets report 54-year-old Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan of Alexandria, Egypt, was arraigned Monday night in Cabell County Magistrate Court on a felony charge of an attempted abduction.

According to a criminal complaint, a woman was shopping with her 5-year-old daughter at the Huntington Mall in Barboursville when a man grabbed the girl by the hair and tried to pull her away. Police say the mother pulled out a gun and told the suspect to let go of the child. The man released the child and was later detained by mall security and Barboursville police near a food court.

Zayan was being jailed on a $200,000 cash bond. Jail records didn’t indicate whether he has an attorney.

38.40953 -82.294592