Father of Child in Paris ‘Spider-Man’ Rescue Was Playing ‘Pokemon Go,’ Faces Prosecution

By Liz Lanier

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Days after the daring rescue of a 4-year-old boy dangling from a Paris balcony, investigators now say that the child was left unsupervised while the father was playing “Pokemon Go.”

French prosecutor Francois Molins revealed
in an interview with CNN affiliate BFM TV
that the child’s father was playing “” while the child was left home unattended. He left the toddler at the apartment unsupervised to go shopping, and his return was further delayed by playing the
popular mobile game
on the way back home.

“Spider-Man” is actually 22-year-old Mamoudou Gassama, a Malian migrant who was on his way to watch a football game when he saw a crowd gathering to watch a child dangling from the fourth floor of an apartment building.

Gassama quickly took action, scaling the four floors in less than a minute, before pulling the boy up over the edge of the balcony as the onlookers cheered.

“I like children, I would have hated to see him getting hurt in front of me,” Gassama said in an interview with BFM TV. “I ran and I looked for solutions to save him and thank God I scaled the front of the building to the balcony.”

Gassama has since received an invitation to Elysee Palace, where he met with French President Emmanual Macron, and has been offered French citizenship and a job with Paris’ fire brigade.

The “Pokemon Go” playing father has since been taken into custody and could potentially serve up to two years in prison for “failure to meet parental obligations” according to prosecutor Molins.