Mom and daughter chase down man accused of trying to kidnap teen girl, video shows
A mom and daughter pair are being hailed as heroes after they saw a man allegedly trying to kidnap a 17-year-old girl as she walked to her Houston, Texas high school - then rescued her and chased after the suspect, reported KPRC.
A woman named Cecilia told ABC 13 she was driving her daughter to Sam Houston High School on Thursday when she saw a man allegedly trying to force a teen girl into his truck.
“We could see when she was trying to get away from him, forcefully pushing him, and that's when she turned around and looked at us,” Cecilia’s younger daughter, who was in the car with her, told the station.
They pulled up and told the girl to get in their car, then the mother hit the gas and chased after the man’s truck. Her daughter recorded part of the chase on video.
In the video, the two cars speed through a suburban neighborhood while a girl can be heard in the background hyperventilating and telling someone on the phone that she is okay.
“Thank you, miss!” she sobs in Spanish. The car bumps and slams over the road, motor roaring, as the mom tries to keep a close tail on the man’s truck. Sometimes she comes only a few feet from the bumper. The truck plows through a stop sign and zooms ahead before the video ends.
Eventually, the man, later identified as Daniel Zapata, drove into a ditch and was boxed in by the good Samaritans’ car, KPRC reported.
Police arrived and charged Zapata with attempted kidnapping, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and driving while intoxicated, according to jail records. He was denied bond Sunday.
Cecilia’s older daughter Stephanie posted the video her sister took on Facebook, where it has been viewed more than 132,000 times and shared another 4,000 times.
“It's like if they were my angels at that moment,” the alleged victim said of her rescuers, according to KPRC.
Stephanie told the ABC 13 she thought her mom was driving like in the movie “Fast and Furious” when she chased after the man, but that it was the right thing to do.
“Sometimes people don't want to get involved,” the daughter told the station. “They might have kept on going, and wondered what might have happened if they had stopped. In life, you're going to take chances, so why not do it for a life.”
In February, a Santa Anna, Calif., woman was also called a hero for stepping in and rescuing a 12-year-old girl after witnessing what police said was an attempted kidnapping.
This story was originally published April 2, 2018 at 2:37 PM with the headline "Mom and daughter chase down man accused of trying to kidnap teen girl, video shows."