WARREN — A Warren father said his children are too scared to go outside alone after a terrifying encounter at Quinby Park, where he claims an unknown man tried to abduct his 5-year-old son.

According to a Warren police report, the incident happened around 7 p.m. Friday. It has left his family shaken, said Dominique Richardson.

“They’re terrified,” Richardson said Tuesday. “I gotta go with them just to open the door and get drinks now. We’ve never had a situation like that happen.”

Richardson said he took his children and some friends to the southwest neighborhood park to play basketball.

“We went up there to play basketball over the full court, because we only got the hoop here,” he said, referring to a park near Rex Boulevard NW. “We were playing for a few hours. Everything was fine. My kids separated from the playground area, went over to the hill and started rolling down.”

When Richardson noticed one of his children was missing, he said he called for them to gather. As he went to look, he saw his son running toward him, frightened.

“He goes, ‘Daddy, he just grabbed me and said I was coming home,'” Richardson said.

Richardson said he saw what he believed to be an older man with blond hair, wearing a black Nike shirt, holding his son’s arm and attempting to pull him toward Union Street SW. A police report stated the person was a younger teen.

“I went running and yelling, you know. And the kid — he stopped his bike, turned around, and looked right at me. As soon as I said, ‘Get back here,’ he was gone like the wind,” Richardson said.

The man rode away on a black mountain bike and was last seen near the intersection of Union Street SW and Parkman Road NW, heading toward Tod Avenue SW. Police searched the area, but were unable to locate him, the report states.

Richardson recounted his son’s experience.

“He grabbed my boy’s arm and called him over to him, told him to come. My boy said the grip hurt his arm, and the kid even invited him to his house to play basketball,” Richardson said.

Richardson said he is relieved he was able to intervene before anything worse happened.

“I had my brother-in-law, my girlfriend, and her friend there too, and we were all yelling. The whole thing worked together, you know — it wasn’t working for him,” he said.

Richardson, who grew up near Quinby Park, said the situation was unlike anything he had ever encountered there.

“That’s the park I went to growing up. I never had anything happen like this,” he said. “His mother posted on Facebook about it, and people said, ‘That’s a bad park, why would you even take them there?’ But I grew up by that park — nothing like this ever happened.”

Police are investigating.

“We’re just waiting to hear something,” Richardson said. “If we don’t, I’m just gonna stay away from that park and keep an eye on my kids, like I normally do.”