Gas station clerk speaks out after foiling alleged kidnapping
A Michigan gas station clerk is speaking out after foiling an alleged kidnapping of a 16-year-old girl.
Abdulrahman Abohatem told ABC News' Detroit affiliate WXYZ he was at work at a Detroit gas station on Monday morning when he noticed a man enter with a teen girl. Abohatem said he sensed something was wrong between the two of them.
"When he asked her to pay for the cigarette, I said, 'Stop. There's something wrong.' And she mouthed, like talked to me like with no sound, 'Help,'" Abohatem recalled.
The teen had allegedly been abducted from a bus stop a block from her home at about 7 a.m. Monday morning, according to Hamtramck Police Department, which released audio from a 911 call about the incident and related police body camera video footage.
"I'm walking to my bus stop, and I just see somebody snatching this girl," an unidentified caller can be heard saying in the 911 audio.
Police said about 30 minutes after allegedly abducting the teen girl, the suspect took her to the gas station where Abohatem worked and told her to buy him cigarettes.
In surveillance video from the gas station, Abohatem can be seen stepping between the girl and the suspect, separating them, before Abohatem and the suspect go outside as police arrive.
"I see the police outside. I point to him -- 'That's the guy,'" Abohatem recounted.
Investigators said they had tracked the girl's location through her phone with the help of friends at her school, Frontier International Academy, which Mohammed Alsanai, the academy's principal, also confirmed.
"One of her friends opened the location through one of the social media apps. I said, 'Oh, I could see her location right now,'" Alsanai recounted to ABC News. "As we show the police the location, informed the dispatch, and as she walked in and said she had the location, like the whole room froze and we all look at each other like, 'Here we go.'"
Investigators took the suspect into custody afterward. Police said the alleged kidnapping was random, and the suspect and teen didn't know each other.
"The suspect is still in custody and charges are pending with the Wayne County Prosecutors Office," the Hamtramck Police Department told ABC News on Wednesday. "We hope to have more information to share on this matter at some point today."
Hamtramck Mayor Adam Alharbi said in a press conference that the suspect "had a history of rape charges, and we will make sure that he gets what he deserves."
The girl's family told WXYZ she is safe at home, processing the incident and thankful for her friends and community members for coming to her aid.
