Four siblings, ages 5-11, were taken by force on their way to school but were saved by two quick-thinking police officers.
The youngest sibling is taken first.
The abduction was caught on a nearby Ring camera, which is the only footage of the crime.
You can hear yelling as the woman tells the younger child to get into the van. The older kids didn’t want to leave their younger brother’s side so they went in the van with him.
The children were not visible in the Ring camera video because a tree is blocking them from view.
The kidnapper makes a big mistake.
It is scary to think about what would have happened to the children if they had not been rescued.
Luckily for them, the woman made a fatal error that ended up thwarting her malicious plan.
The woman ran a red light at an intersection where two very observant officers happened to be working. After witnessing her cruising through the red light, they pulled her over.
They knew something was off.
Detroit Police officers, Officer Parrish and Officer Flannel were doing a routine stop after noticing a large van speeding through a red light.
They stopped the driver and immediately noticed something wasn’t quite right.
The two officers spoke to the woman and asked her some questions to try and figure out what was actually going on.
“Are these your children?”
The officers were simply following a routine traffic violation stop but what unfolded gave the kids the chance they needed.
After pulling the woman over, the two officers asked the woman if the four kids in the van were her children and she responded, “yes.”
The kids gave a different answer.
Detroit Police Chief James White spoke at a press conference about the ordeal.
He said that the woman told the officers that they were her children but the officers noticed the children shaking their heads, ‘no.’
The woman told the officers that she had, unfortunately, run a red light attempting to get the kids to school quickly.
They questioned her again about what school they attended and she couldn’t come up with a convincing answer.
The two officers were able to question the 11-year-old alone, outside of the vehicle. They asked the child if they knew the woman and the child responded, ‘no.’
With that, they immediately arrested the woman and the children were taken safely out of her possession.
Their hard work and keen observation skills saved those children.
“These 2 officers exercised excellent police investigate skills, in doing so they were able to take a kidnapper off the streets, and safeguard the 4 children from any hurt, harm and danger. Outstanding work to Officers Flannel and Parrish, two of the hard workers in the Eighth Precinct.” – Facebook – Eighth Precinct Community
Mother, Shayla Burleigh, told WXYZ-Channel 7 Detroit how thankful she was to everyone involved in the rescue.
“I just thank everyone involved that my children are back home safe.”
This happy ending is thanks to some amazing kids who never gave up on each other and two fearless officers who followed their gut.