MARIETTA, Ga. -- Police continue to look for a second person of interest in connection with an attempted kidnapping and aggravated assault involving an 11-year-old girl.
Danzell Mitchell, 26, was arrested after allegedly threatening the girl with a knife in a Town Center Mall restroom.
"In this case this man was armed with a knife and we verified that and it wasn't a knife that a normal person would be carrying in their pocket," said Cobb County Deputy Police Chief Stuart Vanhoozer.
"When she entered the restroom she didn't see anything that she thought was unusual," Vanhoozer said. "She didn't see any other people."
When the girl came out of the stall, a man she identified as Mitchell walked out of another stall.
Mitchell's arrest warrant details him showing her a knife...and telling the girl to be quiet as he grabbed her. Instead, she chose to escape.
"When she screamed it startled him a little bit and that she was able to break free," Vanhoozer said.
The girl ran out of the restroom and told her father what happened.
Back in the food court, the girl's father and several shoppers confronted him.
"After a slight foot chase, several people were able to get him under control and corralled him," Vanhoozer said. They held him until mall security and police arrived to make the arrest.
As they waited for police, the girl's father said he noticed Mitchell looking into the distance toward a woman, "and she was making a hand gesture and lip movements toward the person that was being detained as if she was communicating with him," Vanhoozer said.
Police are now trying to learn the motive behind the incident and Mitchell's relationship to the woman who police are calling a person of interest.
She is only described by police as a thin woman with dark hair, an olive complexion and wearing a pink shirt.
