DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. − An 11-year-old girl in Florida who texted 911 operators to report that an armed man had kidnapped her friend was arrested Wednesday and charged with falsely reporting a crime, authorities said.
The child, who lives in Port Orange near Daytona Beach in east-central Florida, had called 911 to report that her 14-year-old friend had been taken by an armed kidnapper driving a white van, said Volusia County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Laura Williams.
For more than 90 minutes, the girl led law enforcement from multiple agencies − including a sheriff’s helicopter − on a wild goose chase as they searched for the alleged kidnapper, who she said was traveling south on Interstate 95 in Oak Hill, located about an hour south of her hometown.
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The girl was charged with a felony count of making a false police report concerning the use of a firearm in a violent manner, as well as a misdemeanor count for misusing the 911 system. The girl was processed at the Family Resource Center and is being held at the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Daytona Beach, Williams said.
When the girl sent the message saying she was in a blue Jeep following the kidnapper’s van on I-95 in Oak Hill, multiple deputies responded, along with police from the nearby cities of Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach and Port Orange. A sheriff’s helicopter also joined the search for the suspect and the van, Williams said.
For 90 minutes the girl texted updates, including a description of the suspect, who she reported had a gun, Williams said. After no suspect nor van was found, sheriff’s deputies traced the messages, which led them at 10:23 a.m. to the girl’s home in Port Orange, Williams said.
The child’s father told deputies the girl was at home, Williams said, and her arrest was caught on video. As deputies approached the girl, her cell phone rang when 911 dispatchers called back.
In body cam footage released to the media, one deputy can be heard admonishing the handcuffed girl.
“I’m telling you right now you’re going to take this as a lesson at 11 years old,” a deputy is heard saying. “If you do something stupid in the future you’re going to enjoy those cuffs.”
“I’m not going to do this again,” the crying 11-year-old girl replies.
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The child told deputies she got the idea to prank 911 through a YouTube challenge and thought it “would be funny,” Williams said.
But Sheriff Mike Chitwood was not amused.
“This kind of prank activity is dangerous,” Chitwood said in a statement. “We’re going to investigate every incident but today it wasted valuable resources that might have helped someone else who legitimately needed our help.”
