Video shows intense moments children are grabbed from grocery store parking lot

REXBURG — Surveillance video obtained by EastIdahoNews.com shows the intense events that occurred in a grocery store parking lot that led to the arrest of a Menan man.

Ricky Monk, 31, is charged with domestic battery, battery and injury to child. Monk and his wife are in the process of getting a divorce and on April 23, Mrs. Monk said her husband physically abused her in Wyoming where they were living, according to a probable cause statement.

Mrs. Monk left Wyoming with her two children to be with family in Idaho and when she arrived, court documents show she was granted a protection order against Monk. The order was signed on April 25 but had not been served when the events occurred at Broulim’s on Main Street on April 27.

Mrs. Monk and her sister, along with the children, parked their vehicle at the grocery store and went inside, according to a probable cause statement. When they returned to their Yukon 10 to 15 minutes later, it was no longer where they had parked it.

“They walked back to the main entrance and made contact with an employee,” the court document states. “At this time, Mr. Monk ran from the east side of the parking lot, grabbed both children and threw them into the back seat of a dark green pickup truck.”

The truck was being driven by another individual.

Mrs. Monk’s sister told police that as Monk tried to grab the children, she tried to stop him and he “head-butted her in the forehead, grabbed the children and proceeded toward the pickup truck.”

Surveillance video shows the children were picked up and thrown into the truck in less than 8 seconds. Court documents show when Monk threw his daughter into the back seat, her head struck the edge of the door and the doorjamb.

Mrs. Monk attempted to stop her husband from taking the children, but video shows him throwing her to the ground as the truck drives away.

“Initially, we thought it was a kidnapping but when we learned the protection order hadn’t been issued, that changed everything because he has every right to those kids too,” Lewis says. “He tossed them into a pickup truck his buddy was driving and then took his wife’s Yukon.”

Police tracked Monk to Grand Teton National Park, where rangers stopped him and his friend. The children were returned to their mother and Monk was booked into the Teton County Wyoming Jail, where bond was set at $35,000.

Monk appeared in Madison County Court on May 1 and is scheduled for his next hearing on May 23. A no-contact order has been issued that expires May 1, 2019.