A possible child abduction attempt that was reported earlier this week in Gardendale now appears to be a misunderstanding.

The Gardendale Police Department has viewed video of the alleged incident, and sees no evidence of wrongdoing.

On Saturday at Celebration Park, a mother reported to the Gardendale Police Department that another woman had possibly attempted to take the first woman’s 7-year-old son.

The mother saw her son standing next to a van, and started screaming. She told police that the other women then “grabbed her [own] kid and threw him in the van and took off,” police said.

According to the video, which The North Jefferson News staff has also reviewed, the van was parked next to an ice cream truck. The van was mostly obscured by the truck.

The 7-year-old boy could be seen walking to the far side of the truck, out of view of the camera. A few minutes later, he was seen running back in the direction from which he came.

A short time later, the van in question was seen slowly backing from its parking spot and driving toward the main entrance of the park.

The mother had posted pictures of a van, taken at the back entrance of the park, onto social media as a “parent alert.” But it was not the same van in the video — the vans looked similar, but the one that had been parked next to the ice cream truck did not have a tag on the front of it, and the van posted onto Facebook did.

Police Chief Mike Walker praised the mother for diligently watching her child. “I wish everybody watched their children that closely,” he said.

However, he is concerned about the backlash directed toward the woman in the van because people on Facebook were threatening her, including death threats.

“This was a misunderstanding that has been charged by social media,” said Walker. “We are not considering this case closed until we talk to the woman in the van. She is not a suspect in a crime; we are just trying to clear this up.”

[Edited at 3:35 p.m. to correct which van had a tag on the front on which did not.]