BSO: Would-Be Kidnapper Targets Teen Walking Home
Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter
POMPANO BEACH (CBSMiami) -- Deputies are asking for the public's help to find a man who tried to kidnap a 13-year old girl in Pompano Beach.
Friday afternoon, Broward Sheriff's deputies released a sketch of the man they are looking for.
BSO says the teen was walking home from school Wednesday along NE 14th Ave. and 4th St. when the would-be kidnapper pulled up in a tan SUV, possibly a Ford Explorer seen in surveillance video.
The man asked the girl where she was going. But she ignored him and kept walking. Then, in what BSO calls a "bold move", the man got out of his SUV, grabbed the girl by her waist and tried shoving her inside.
But the 13 year old fought back.
"This little girl saved her own life," BSO spokeswoman Joy Oglesby told CBS4. "This girl did everything right. She screamed really loudly. She kicked and freed herself. And then she immediately told her mother and BSO what happened."
This all happened right across from Pompano Beach High, one of several nearby schools. In fact, it is in front of a child daycare across the street from the high school where surveillance video recorded the girl running away, the SUV chasing her.
"It's scary," explained Theresa Rebori, a parent who lives around the corner. "My son's only two but that's like one of those things you worry about when you're pregnant and then after you have your child like letting them grow older and then something happening like that."
"There's nice houses around here and there's a lot of kids in this area," Rebori went on to describe. "There's a really nice park right behind the school actually. And ball fields. And I constantly walk with my son in his stroller."
"It's scary the fact that I live in this area," agreed a 14-year-old girl walking home from school.
She is an 8th grader at Crystal Lake Middle School. She buddies up with a friend when her bus drops her off every day at the corner of the high school.
"Every day I leave my mom calls me to say 'be safe walking to the bus' or 'be careful,'" she said.
Investigators say the man they are looking for is thin with reddish-brown hair, possibly in his late 40s, early 50s.
If you know or saw anything, give Broward Crime Stoppers a call at 954-493-TIPS.
