A manhunt is underway in southeast Queens for a sexual predator who allegedly kidnapped a 9-year-old girl at a Queens Village supermarket while she was grocery shopping with her grandmother on Thursday evening.
The abduction occurred inside the Key Food at 213-22 Jamaica Ave. just after 7:20 p.m., when the grandmother went to the bathroom. The sexual deviant approached the youngster and lured her out of the store and into his vehicle, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.
While the grandmother alerted store employees that her granddaughter had gone missing, the perpetrator led her into a four-door Honda Civic sedan and drove away from the location and traveled a short distance. The kidnapper parked and proceeded to force the young girl to perform a lewd act in his vehicle, police said.
Following the sexual assault, the suspect drove back to the Queens Village Key Food and let her go before driving off in an unknown direction. The victim was reunited with her grandmother before EMS transported the victim to a local area hospital to be examined. An NYPD spokesman could not say which hospital the victim was taken to.
What happened next has led to calls on social media for street justice to be meted out against the kidnapper.
The NYPD released a surveillance photo of the suspect and is asking for the public’s help in identifying him. He is described as having a dark complexion with a heavy build. He was last seen wearing a pink polo shirt, a blue MTA baseball cap, clear-framed eyeglasses and blue jeans. On Friday, the NYPD released another surveillance image of the Honda Civic the perpetrator was driving.
A reward of up to $3,500 is being offered for information that leads to the alleged predator’s arrest.
Anyone with information regarding this kidnapping investigation is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
Through Aug. 25, the 105th Precinct, where the crime occurred, has reported 37 sex crimes so far in 2024, seven more than the 30 reported at the same point last year, an increase of 23.3%, according to the most recent CompStat report.
