'Call The Cops!': Springfield Woman Witnessed Abduction That Prompted Amber Alert
SPRINGFIELD (CBS) – Maggie Kenney thought something seemed off about the Honda Civic driving through her Springfield neighborhood Wednesday afternoon, so she stepped onto her porch. What she witnessed next and caught on her home surveillance camera became key as police put out an Amber Alert an 11-year-old girl.
Police said 24-year-old Miguel Rodriguez forced the girl into his car around 1:30 p.m. in the area of Princeton and Amherst Streets.
An Amber Alert was issued for the girl around 5:20 p.m. At 7:15 p.m., a driver reported seeing the Civic on the Mass Pike, and State Police arrested Rodriguez at gunpoint in Brimfield.
Kenney lives in the neighborhood where the girl was abducted from. She said she saw the Civic make a U-turn and almost hit her husband's van.
"What made me suspicious was when they backed up," said Kenney. "The little girl was coming, and another young man was behind her. The more she walked up fast, the young man behind her was walking up fast. When he got out of the car and grabbed her, I was on the porch and started yelling."
Kenney screamed for her husband to call police.
"Call the cops, call the cops, call the cops! I'm screaming, yelling to wake up the neighborhood. (The girl) was saying 'Stop! Put me down!'" said Kenney. "It was terrible. I thought I was dreaming or sleeping. I couldn't believe it, in the day, at 1:30 that this was going on."
Maggie Kenney's husband Julius heard her cries.
"Yeah, I heard her hollering 'Help! Help!'" he recalled. "I come down, and by the time I got down here, they were gone."
The Springfield woman said the girl's mother is usually standing there waiting for her daughter after school, but no one was there on Wednesday. Kenney said that was part of the reason she was watching as the girl walked home.
"It happened that fast. The car was running and he just grabbed her and threw her in the back seat and she was screaming," she said. "He had to tussle with her because she had her bag and her coat around her. He just picked her up."
When police arrived in the neighborhood, they were able access the Kenney family's surveillance video, which played a key part in the investigation.
"I was just crying and thanking God that that little girl is found. There's a lot of kids picked up that they never found them," Maggie said.
Another neighbor, named Shelly, also gave police her surveillance images.
"I went and grabbed the police and said we have cameras," said Shelly, who did not want her last name used. "It was so fast it was like 60 seconds or less."
The images were the first ones to go out in an Amber Alert.
Rodriguez is due in court on Thursday.