How would you feel if like on any other normal day, you send off your kid to school, only to learn later that on his/her way there, they nearly got kidnapped?
In recent years, parents had to deal with a lot of anxiety related to their kids and their days at school, as assaults and bullying incidents are just a few of the things that are often reported.
However, our story today is even more shocking if you consider the time and the place of the incident that occurred. Just a few days ago, in Pensacola, Florida, an 11-year-old girl was nearly kidnapped from the bus stop just outside her house while she was waiting for her school bus.
Surveillance footage captured the moment when a white SUV rolled up to a grassy roundabout where the little girl was sitting patiently, waiting for her bus.
In the video, you can see how an armed man with a knife, jumped out of the SUV and run towards the child. Alyssa Bonal, the little girl, seeing the charging man, stood and tried to flee but the man was too fast.
The would-be kidnapper quickly grabbed Alyssa by her torso and attempted to carry her back to his car.
However, the brave girl didn’t give up, she fought back, wiggling her body and kicking him to the point that her assailant couldn’t hold her anymore.
The man dropped Alyssa and sprinted away to his car, quickly driving off, scared of someone noticing the whole incident.
As you can see in the video, the shaken child run in the opposite direction, as soon as she retrieved her belongings.
Alyssa, who at the time of her attack was playing with some blue slime, managed to smear some of it on her would-be abductor, which helped later the Police to track him down as he still had the slime on him.
Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons told reporters, “I cannot help but think that this could have ended very differently. Had this 11-year-old victim not thought to fight and to fight and to just never give up, then this could have ended terribly.”
Later that day, the 30-year-old Jared Paul Stanga was arrested after a search involving at least 50 deputies. The man was charged with the attempted kidnapping of a child under 13, aggravated assault with a weapon, and simple battery.
According to the Sheriff, the crime was premeditated as the same man had approached Alyssa about two weeks earlier at her bus stop.
Her mother then started to accompany the child to the bus stop every day, but on that Tuesday the mother didn’t, which gave the would-be abductor a chance to act.
Thankfully, Alyssa’s quick reaction and bravery saved her on that day. Let’s wish her quick recovery as an incident of this nature might have caused the young child a deep psychological wound.
If you would like to see the whole attempted kidnapping, check out the video below.
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