LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Faboa Chen appeared in court on Wednesday for kidnapping and endangerment charges.
"It's really wrong what he did, somebody could have gotten hurt,” Patricia Duncan, who works for a neighboring business, said.
He pleaded not guilty to what happened Tuesday afternoon. Talking through a translator, he said a child was throwing a bottle in his restaurant. He tried to get him to stop.
Police said Chen pulled out what looked like a gun and took the boy from the Kroger to his Chinese Restaurant, the Double Dragon.
"He's gotten into other altercations with customers and always points that gun. This is not the first time," Amanda Thompson-McAllister, the manager at Laundry Connection, said.
That business shared their surveillance video showing Chen walking with the boy. In the video, you can see Chen grab the boys arm.
"There's another way to resolve this, that wasn't the way to do it," Thompson-McAllister said.
In the video, you see a man follow Chen. When a crowd showed up a few minutes later, police say Chen pointed what they thought was a gun at the crowd.
Patricia Duncan saw what happened while she was working.
"I didn't see him pointing the gun at him, he just had it pointing down and he was hollering, telling everyone to get out of the store," Duncan said.
It ended up being a BB gun that he was holding. Neighboring business saying that they have seen kids causing trouble around the area.
"Them throwing rocks down at the store, I heard about that," Duncan said. "But it’s his reaction that’s the problem."
Duncan feels the situation could have been handled another way.
"It should have been handled different by calling the police, not going and grabbing the child, like he did," Duncan said.
The judge also ruled on Wednesday that Chen can't have contact with his restaurant.
Surrounding businesses said there has been a series of issues regarding vandalism. WHAS11 checked and police were called to the 2600 block of West Broadway 33 times so far in 2019.
Reasons for the calls varied from criminal mischief, robbery, and abandonment of a minor.
Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.