A 16-year-old Michigan girl is safe after being kidnapped on her way to school, thanks to an attentive store clerk who recognized her cry for help..
Police in Hamtramck said that the young victim was walking to the bus stop on the morning of Monday, April 13, when at around 7 a.m., a man she does not know pulled up alongside her. He brandished a gun and instructed the teen to get into his car, police said.
Investigators said that several students witnessed the abduction and were able to help police track the Frontier International Academy student’s location through social media and cell phone data.
When the kidnapper stopped 30 minutes later to get gas in Detroit just five miles away, police said that he made the girl go with him into the convenience store. Once inside, the man told the girl to buy him a pack of cigarettes, police said.
When the girl reached the counter, she mouthed the word “Help” to clerk Abdulrahman Abohatem, who quickly realized something was amiss.
“When he ask her to pay for the cigarettes, I stop and go, ‘There’s something wrong,'” Abohatem told WXYZ. “And she mouthed talked to me, like with no sound, ‘Help.'”
Abohatem said that he left the counter, and got between the girl and her captor.
“I go out, I kick him out, I ask the girl go behind me,” Abohatem told the station.
As the kidnapper was being thrown out of the store, police cars rolled up — having tracked the teen girl to the service station, with help from her classmates.
“I see the police outside. I point to him. I go, ‘That’s the guy,'” Abohatem said.
Hamtramck Mayor Adam Alharbi noted that the suspect’s criminal background includes “a history of rape charges, and we will make sure he gets what he deserves.”
Abohatem said he feels “good” he was able to save the girl.
“It is very concerning because we’re talking about a child’s life here,” said Hamtramck Police Chief Hussein Farhat during a press conference Monday. “It’s scary to [the victim’s family]. It’s scary to every parent who has children. So, we can only imagine what’s going through their head right now. Just want to make sure they know we’re there for them.”
Farhat said that the gun the man flashed at the teen victim has been recovered.
The suspect’s name was being withheld until his arraignment, which will likely happen on Wednesday, April 15.
