A Michigan gas station clerk helped save a 16-year-old girl who entered his store and mouthed the word “help” after a man had kidnapped her at gunpoint on her way to school last week, the authorities said.
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday charged the suspect, Donald James Joseph Arthur Fields, 48, of Hamtramck, Mich., with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, one count of kidnapping, one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and one count of felonious assault, Chief Hussein Farhat of the Hamtramck Police Department said at a news conference. Mr. Fields also faces other felony firearm charges.
Mr. Fields is being held without bond in the Wayne County Jail, Chief Farhat said. A court-appointed lawyer for Mr. Fields could not immediately be reached.
“This was a community effort,” Chief Farhat said. “This was a heroic actions by a young student that allowed us to get there, and also that followed up with another heroic action by a gas station clerk.”
A girl who attends Frontier International Academy in Hamtramck, just outside Detroit, was waiting for a bus just after 7 a.m. on Monday when a man, identified by the authorities as Mr. Fields, placed something at her back, forced her into his van and drove away, prosecutors said in a news release. A fellow female student who saw what happened immediately called 911, and police were dispatched for a possible kidnapping, prosecutors said.
Mr. Fields drove to a gas-station convenience store in Detroit, which he entered with the girl and had her buy cigarettes for him, prosecutors said. Prosecutors say Mr. Fields sexually assaulted the girl in the van.
The gas station clerk, Abdulrahman Abohatem, said in an interview with WXYZ-TV in Detroit that he found it strange the man had the girl pay for the cigarettes. Then the girl mouthed “help,” he said.
Mr. Abohatem stepped out from behind the store’s protective glass, told the girl to get behind him and kicked the man out of the store, he said.
Police arrived moments later and arrested Mr. Fields, confiscated a handgun and seized the van, prosecutors said. Police were able to locate Mr. Fields and the girl at the store with help from students at Frontier International Academy, who were tracking the girl’s location using their cellphones and social media, prosecutors said.
Body camera footage released by the Hamtramck Police Department and broadcast by WXYZ-TV shows officers apprehending Mr. Fields after he exits the convenience store. According to the body camera footage, the officers said a man ran out of the store pointing out Mr. Fields to the police. Mr. Fields can be heard asking officers why he’s being detained.
Mr. Fields was arraigned on Thursday. Prosecutors described what happened to the girl as “every parent’s worst nightmare.”
“Our young survivor in this case was simply walking in broad daylight when she was viciously attacked and sexually assaulted,” Kym Worthy, the county prosecutor, said in a statement. “Despite what she had just gone through, her quick thinking and mental toughness saved her life. We cannot reverse what happened to her, but we can work hard to bring justice to her.”
Mr. Fields is scheduled to appear in court on April 30.
Johnny Diaz contributed reporting.
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