Police have arrested and charged a child sex offender who tried to kidnap a 4-year-old boy off his bike at a Woodstock park on Friday.
At around 12:45 p.m. the Woodstock Police Department responded to Olson Play Park near Clay Street and Bagley Street for a report of a fight in progress. When officers arrived they separated the subjects involved and began an investigation into the incident.
Officials said that it was learned that Kevin A. Sorensen, 39, of 212 Meadow Lane in Woodstock, pulled a four-year-old boy off of his bicycle at the park, picked him up and began to run off with him. The boy and his friends began screaming, which alerted adults in the area of what was occurring, police said.
Authorities said that two Good Samaritans physically freed the boy from Sorensen and restrained him until police officers arrived. Sorensen was taken into custody by responding Woodstock officers and detectives without incident.
Police said that Sorensen was identified as a convicted child sex offender who was no longer required to register as such.
According to the Northwest Herald, previously when Sorensen was 15-years-old in 1993 he was charged with luring an 8-year-old boy into the woods in Woodstock and raping him.
The McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office has charged Sorensen with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated battery, unlawful restraint, and aggravated criminal sexual abuse. All charges are felonies.
Sorenson will be transported to the McHenry County Jail to await a bond court hearing.
“This investigation was assisted by a multidisciplinary team, consisting of members from the Woodstock Police Department, the McHenry County States Attorney’s Office and the McHenry County Child Advocacy Center,” Woodstock police said in a statement.
“Because of the quick, heroic actions of the Good Samaritans and responding officers and detectives, the child was not physically injured.”