Two months ago, Mahendra Patel was looking for Tylenol at a Walmart in Georgia when he asked a woman on a motorized cart, who had two children with her, for assistance in locating the medication, according to his lawyer.
The woman would later allege that Patel then grabbed her 2-year-old son from her lap, and she had to pull the child back. Subsequently, a grand jury indicted Patel on charges including attempted kidnapping – accusations that have led to his detention without bond in Georgia’s Cobb County jail for over 40 days.
However, Patel offers a different account, which his lawyer claims is supported by surveillance footage: he was merely trying to ensure the boy didn’t fall off the motorized cart, which the lawyer asserts had just bumped into a store display.
“The surveillance video is very clear that this was not a kidnapping, or attempted kidnapping,” Patel’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, told CNN.
“There was no struggle. There was nothing like that,” Merchant stated.
Ahead of a bond hearing scheduled for Tuesday, Merchant argues that her client is innocent, citing in part the video that she subpoenaed from Walmart and shared with news outlets, including CNN.
CNN’s attempts to reach the accuser, Caroline Miller, who has previously spoken publicly about the incident, for comment have been unsuccessful. A family member informed CNN that Miller declined to comment on the case when reached by phone.
Here’s a breakdown of what the video depicts, the allegations made by the accuser and authorities, and the defense presented by Patel’s attorney:
Video of the Main Interaction
The incident occurred on March 18 at a Walmart in Acworth, a city in Cobb County approximately 30 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta, according to Acworth police. Security camera footage shows Patel entering the store and later encountering Miller on a motorized scooter with two children, one in her lap and the other at her feet. The video contains no audio.
The video shows Patel, mostly with his back to the camera, speaking with Miller. Both Merchant and Miller have stated that Patel asked her if she knew where the Tylenol was located.
Subsequently, as the cart moves in front of a display separating two aisles and Patel walks beside her, Patel appears to reach towards Miller’s lap. He seems to briefly take something into his arms and lift it, but Miller appears to reach back. The position of the cart and the boy before Patel’s reach – including whether the child might have been falling and whether the cart hit anything – is not clear because Patel’s back obstructs the view from the camera.
A man standing nearby at the end of the aisle behind Patel and Miller turns to look at the scooter for a few seconds shortly after Patel’s reach, but does not intervene and then turns back, the video shows. CNN has attempted to contact this individual for comment.
Immediately after Miller reaches back, the child is seen in her lap, and Patel takes a few steps away. Miller gestures towards something in the distance, and Patel walks off-camera in that direction.
In a March interview with CNN affiliate WSB, Miller described Patel’s reach: “When I pointed my arm out this way to point it to the direction of where (the Tylenol) was, that is when he reached down, put both of his hands on (the boy), and grabbed him out of my lap.”
She said it happened quickly. “I’m like, ‘No, no … what are you doing?’ He pulled him,” Miller told WSB. “I pulled him back. We’re tug-of-warring.”
Merchant, however, contends that the scooter had “clipped the corner” of the display, and Patel reacted to protect the boy. “He’s never denied that he leaned in to try to help and make sure the child didn’t fall,” Merchant told CNN.
“There’s no tug-of-war. It’s … a split second,” Merchant said. “There’s definitely no battery, no assault, nothing like that at all.”
WSB reported that Miller did not respond to their request for comment on the surveillance video last month when Merchant made it public, nor did she respond to CNN’s request for comment.
The Cobb County district attorney’s office declined CNN’s request for comment on the case, and CNN has sought comment from the Acworth Police Department.
The Minutes After the First Interaction
After Patel walks away, a different camera angle shows Miller moving her scooter to the aisle where the other man is standing and backing it into a product display. Miller and this man talk briefly before the other child leaves the foot of the scooter, and the scooter moves forward, bumping into the child’s leg. The man appears to briefly lift the scooter away from the child’s leg, the child gets back on the scooter, and Miller eventually drives away.
Seconds later, Patel reappears behind Miller. Miller looks back at Patel, then at the other man, and drives forward. Patel and the man talk for approximately 15 seconds, after which Patel walks away from him and past Miller, surveillance video shows.
About four minutes after Patel’s initial encounter with Miller, another video shows Patel walking by her again in the store and showing her something in his hand. According to Merchant, it was the Tylenol he was looking for. Merchant says Miller makes a few gestures, including a “thumbs-up” sign, and Patel walks away.
Two minutes after that, video shows Miller talking to a Walmart employee. At roughly the same time, another camera captures Patel paying for the Tylenol.
On his way out of the store, Patel stops to talk with a different Walmart employee for more than 20 seconds.
Police Respond, and Patel is Arrested
A Walmart assistant manager stated in an incident report compiled by the store that Miller told a Walmart employee “a man ask(ed) her (where) the Tylenol was and as she was helping him he tried to grab her child and she quickly grabbed the child back.” Walmart provided the report when subpoenaed by Merchant, who then shared it with CNN.
According to the Walmart report, Miller called the police. Acworth police responded to the store sometime later.
“Officers spoke with the mother and witnesses and learned that the suspect approached her and asked a question about Tylenol,” Acworth police said in a news release on Facebook. “The suspect then grabbed the juvenile and attempted to pull the child away from the mother. The mother was able to break away with the juvenile and the suspect fled the area. The juvenile was not injured during the incident.”
Police stated that three days later, Patel was arrested after investigators reviewed security footage and spoke with witnesses.
Walmart declined to comment on the incident itself but released a statement saying it
