Arnaud Nimenya, James Hielema, Starlyn Rivas-Perez, and Carsyn Wright are four teenage skateboarders.
They are also being hailed as heroes for their brave actions to save a young woman from an assault.
The four teens noticed something disturbing.
The four skateboarders were hanging out in the underground parking lot at Chinook Mall.
As skateboarders often do, they were just hanging out, riding their boards, and for the most part, minding their own business.
At this point, the boys believed the man but they still were concerned about the situation.
Then they saw something which just didn’t sit well with them.
They noticed a well-dressed man carrying a young woman who appeared to be quite intoxicated and in distress.
“She was screaming and yelling. She just wanted to be out of there. She was all scuffed up and dirty,” said Wright, one of the skateboarders.
The four friends questioned the man.
The boys weren’t sure what to make from the situation but they stopped the man and asked him some questions to determine if the woman was safe.
The man said he was going to call the woman’s father to get her a ride home.
“You don’t want to really think of the worst in somebody like that. You don’t want that situation to be real, so you just brush it off and hope for the best,” Wright said.
The situation still seemed unsettling to the boys, however, and they weren’t going to let things go just like that.
Stopping an assault from happening.
The boys rode off for a bit but decided they would return to check in on the situation.
When they came back, the man was sexually assaulting the inebriated girl.
“He had her in a stairwell, bent over, and just, it was disgusting,” Wright said.
“You walk in, and you see something like that, and you freeze. You don’t know what to do,” Nimenya said about his initial reaction.
“He was trying to walk out and walk away from us,” said Nimenya. “He pushed me aggressively out of the way, kinda like just gives me the smile, like, ‘I can do this. You can’t do anything about it.’”
The boys were not going to let him get away with it, however.
Even though the situation was possibly dangerous, the 4 brave young men took action.
Chasing after the man.
3 of the boys chased after the man, while the fourth stayed with the victim.
When the boys caught up with the man a physical confrontation began. The man picked up one of their longboards and used it to attack the 3 boys.
Police would arrive shortly after, however, and apprehended the man.
Calgary Police Chief's Awards Gala Honours Skateboarders Who Stopped Sexual Assault https://t.co/p1OPQCMxFf
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 18, 2017
Recognizing the boys for their bravery.
The police wanted to reward the boys for their bravery but the teenagers were at first apprehensive of speaking with the police.
This is standard behavior for skateboarders, of course, but they would eventually accept an award from Chief Const. Roger Chaffin at the Chief’s Awards Gala.
“We always thought we were going to be in trouble because we fought with him. When they called us, we didn’t wanna answer.”
Calgary Police Chief's Awards Gala Honours Skateboarders Who Stopped Sexual Assault #yyc https://t.co/7TcV44ClLR
— Mak_Canada (@Mak_Canada) November 19, 2017
These brave young men truly are heroes and a young girl is safe because of their actions.
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