By Dustin Brown
A Long Island City schoolgirl escaped the clutches of a would-be kidnapper by kicking and screaming her way out of his arms Monday morning, police said.
The 10-year-old girl was walking to summer school at PS 112 around 8:35 a.m. when a man grabbed her near the intersection of 36th Avenue and 24th Street, covered her eyes with his hands and attempted to pull her into a waiting Ford Explorer, police said.
But the girl had another idea, immediately putting up a fight by kicking her way out of his arms, ultimately hitting him in the groin. The man winced in pain before jumping back into the car, which pulled off with a woman behind the wheel.
Sandra Davis, 53, a nearby resident who saw the altercation through her window, said she initially thought the attempted abductor was the girl’s father and that she was just having a tantrum.
“You’d have thought that it was a parent trying to get a child into the car,” she said. “When I see her start kicking the man and then he jumps in the car and takes off, then I knew something was wrong.”
The case comes on the heels of a series of highly publicized kidnappings of young girls across the country. Scrutiny from those incidents has raised public awareness about measures children can follow to avoid an abduction and protect themselves if they are approached.
In one noteworthy case from Philadelphia last month, 7-year-old Erica Pratt was kidnapped and tied up in a basement but managed to chew through her restraints and flee through a first-floor window.
The Long Island City girl, who lives near the site where the attempted abduction took place, immediately ran to school for help after escaping the man’s grip.
“I said to the little girl, ‘You did a good job there,’” said Davis, who encountered the young victim again later in the day when she returned to the block with her mother and reporters.
“She was shook up, but she said she was glad they didn’t take her,” Davis said. “There’s too much of this going on around here.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
