Kevin Place was grabbing his usual morning coffee at a Phoenix convenience store when a conversation caught his attention. A security guard was talking on the phone with police about a 2-year-old girl reported missing in an Amber Alert the day before.
Place, a foreman and driver for Camelback Moving, asked the guard what was happening. The guard told him he believed he had just seen the child — and the woman suspected of taking her — walk into the store and head toward the bathroom.
The security guard had snapped a photo of the toddler and the woman accompanying her. He showed the image to Place, who had seen the Amber Alert. Police also released a photo of the suspect they believe was involved in her disappearance.
“Oh man, that really is them,” Place, 36, recalled saying. “You never expect to see the kid or whoever they say is missing.”
Place left the QuikTrip convenience store and ran to the moving truck, where several of his co-workers were about to head to their first residential move of the day. It was around 7 a.m. on Feb. 22.
“Kevin stopped us and said the Amber Alert child was in there,” said Ralph Vollmert, 32, also a foreman with Camelback Moving.
The movers wrote down the license plate of the car the woman and child had arrived in. A man was sitting in the driver’s seat and remained in the vehicle while they went inside, they said.
“That’s when we came up with the idea to just block him in,” Place said.
Dash cam footage captured the movers’ reaction to realizing they saw the girl in the store.
“Oh my god, that’s her,” Robert Hernandez said in the video, while looking at the Amber Alert photo on his co-worker’s phone.
“You should block him,” Place said.
They maneuvered their roughly 30-foot moving truck tightly behind the suspect’s vehicle, which was facing the store, preventing it from leaving.
“I’ve got a daughter myself,” Christopher Dixon, one of the movers, said in the Dash cam video.
Within two minutes, Phoenix Police arrived at the scene, taking the woman into custody and rescuing the child.
“Our trucks are so big, that it would have been hard for them to get out,” Place said of the suspect’s car, adding that they parked close enough to prevent the car from backing up or turning in either direction.
Police said the child, Kehlani Rogers, was taken from her home on Feb. 20 around 11:30 p.m. in Avondale, Arizona. She was wearing pink pajamas and braids.
The suspect, Mariana Noriega, 23, was taken to the Maricopa County Jail. Police said Kehlani was in good health and seemed unharmed. She was reunited with her parents that morning.
“We send out these Amber Alerts and they’re not hopeless for us. We really are relying on the community to keep an eye out and let us know when they see something,” said Daniel Benavidez, a public information officer for Avondale Police. “That’s exactly what these gentlemen did.”
Police said the security guard and movers were critical in securing the child.
“They were a tremendous help, and without their response that morning, we don’t know how long this investigation could have gone for,” Benavidez said.
The movers said they were acting on instinct.
“We’re all fathers, so we were just happy we were able to help the child get home,” Vollmert said.
“It was a great feeling just knowing we possibly stopped some of the worst things that could happen to a kid,” Place said.
Benavidez said Noriega was a “recent acquaintance” of the girl’s family but did not explain how she knew them or why she allegedly took the child. Local news outlet AZ Family reported that Kehlani’s parents had just met Noriega, and had allowed her to stay in their home the night Kehlani went missing.
Noriega, who The Washington Post could not reach for comment, was charged with custodial interference, a felony in Arizona. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for today, according to court documents.
The Avondale Police Department honored the eight movers who were there that morning, as well as the security guard, Skyler Emmons, with Good Samaritan awards on Feb. 26. They also received certificates of recognition from the Avondale mayor and the city council on Monday.
“What began as a missing person quickly escalated into an abduction,” Avondale Police Chief Memo Espinoza said during a news conference. “These men acted with urgency, took decisive action and put their own safety at risk by using their company vehicle to block in the vehicle that Kehlani and Noriega were seen in. … They ensured that Noriega was unable to leave before the Phoenix Police Department arrived.”
The movers said they were happy their efforts paid off.
“We were just grateful that the child was home, we weren’t doing it for an award or anything like that,” Vollmert said.
Still, they said, it was meaningful to be commended for their actions.
“That was the first award or trophy-type thing I’ve ever gotten,” Vollmert said.
“It feels great when people recognize that you did a good thing,” Place said, noting that the story has gotten a lot of attention on traditional and social media in the past week and he’s received calls from people he hasn’t spoken to in years. “It’s been pretty cool.”
Chad Olsen, the president of the moving company, said he is not surprised by what his employees did that morning.
“These men are such humble dads but they’re heroes,” he said. “We couldn’t be more proud.”
For a few years, Camelback Moving has partnered with Truckers Against Trafficking, a nonprofit that trains people in the trucking industry to recognize and report human trafficking.
“We’ve been working with them to bring awareness to our crews,” Olsen said. “Truckers are the eyes and ears of America on the roads.”
The movers said people sometimes ignore Amber Alerts or see them as a nuisance. They hope their actions encourage others to pay attention.
“Without it, we would have never known who that little girl was,” Place said.
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