Man tried to kidnap girl in LA, but she was ‘the wrong person to mess with,’ cops say
Los Angeles police are praising an elementary school girl for managing to escape an attempted kidnapping on Thursday morning, while also getting a good look at the suspect.
Detectives with the police department’s Wilshire Division released a sketch of the suspect on Friday, after what authorities described as a “brazen” daytime kidnapping attempt. The girl targeted in the attempt was 10 years old, Patch reports.
The man, between 30 and 35 years old, went up to the girl around 7:45 a.m. as she walked near her school on the 1700 block of Vineyard Avenue in the Mid-City area, police said in a news release. He was right behind the girl, which prompted her to turn around — but when the girl tried continuing to the school, the man grabbed her by the backpack and said “let’s go,” according to police.
At that point the girl “managed to slip out of her backpack and run into the school grounds where she observed the suspect running south bound on Vineyard and out of sight,” police said.
School staff were notified and looked for the suspect, but didn’t find him, according to police. The girl is a student at Alta Loma Elementary School, KABC reports.
The man was described as about 6 feet and 2 or 4 inches, with a medium build and red-tipped curly black hair. Police said they haven’t found video footage recording the incident yet, but “a criminologist responded and created a rendering, with assistance from the victim.”
“I just give this young girl so much credit for having the composure to number one — run away. And to number two — to look back and get a good look at the suspect,” Capt. Tim Nordquist said, according to FOX 11. “So this little girl, she was the wrong person to mess with because she knew what to do.”
Anyone with information in the case is encouraged to call Los Angeles police, the news release said. At a news conference about the reported kidnapping attempt Friday, police also told parents and their children to avoid walking alone, FOX 11 reports.
“I think it’s good to walk your children to school if you can, but that’s not always possible with peoples’ work schedules,” Nordquist said, according to the TV station. “If students can walk together in a group, I think that’s important. I think that’s one of the good things about this incident yesterday, is that this young student was not alone. She was walking to school with other friends and together they were able to run away — which I think is important. Walk together with other students, don’t walk to school alone.”
Police said there will be an added law enforcement presence at the school for the next few days, CBSLA reports.
This story was originally published April 26, 2019 at 3:22 PM with the headline "Man tried to kidnap girl in LA, but she was ‘the wrong person to mess with,’ cops say."