A little girl managed to escape a kidnapper thanks to the clever trick her parents had taught her.
The police have praised an 11-year-old Arizona girl after she managed to evade potential kidnapping by asking the man who tried to lure her in his car for the ‘code word’ her parents had set up.
According to the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, the unidentified male pulled up next to the young girl with his white SUV back in 2018. He then told the child that her brother had been in an accident and that she should go with him.
The girl then remembered her parents’ lesson and asked the man for the code word her parents had set up to make sure their daughter doesn’t follow or go with people who don’t know the secret word.
After the man failed to come up with the correct answer, the 11-year-old knew she shouldn’t enter his car and he was forced to drive off.
“An 11-year-old girl was walking with a friend near a park in the neighborhood when a man, driving a white SUV, pulled up next to them. The man told the girl that her brothers were in a serious accident and she needed to go with him. The child asked the man what the ‘code word’ was, but he did not know it and drove off,” the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office explained in their viral post.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Mark Lamb praised the girl’s parents and encouraged other people to create similar plans and strategies to keep their children safe from potential predators.
“Kudos to the parents of this child for having a code word and talking about to their children about stranger danger.
We hope by putting this out, it will encourage parents to have that conversation and create a plan with their children, so they know what to do if they are in that situation,” the sheriff said.
The authorities also warned that the same SUV, and presumably the same man, was seen circling around the park in the North Pecan Creek neighborhood several times per day.
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