Family Captures Girl's Suspected Stalker
TAMPA, Fla., Jan 13, 2005 — -- The quick action of a teenage girl's family may have saved her from being abducted as she waited for a school bus this morning, police said.
A man suspected of stalking the 14-year-old at her bus stop was caught and beaten by two members of her family, police said.
Several hours later, the suspect was still in the hospital while neighbors were crediting the family with possibly saving the girl's life.
Investigators told ABC News affiliate WFTS-TV in Tampa that the teenager said she had seen the same man drive past her bus stop several times over the last few weeks, both in the mornings and afternoons. She said he sometimes stopped to ask her where she was going or to tell her how nice she looked, police said.
On Wednesday, the girl told her parents that the man had become more aggressive, pulling in front of her and opening the door in an attempt to get her to go with him.
Based on that, the girl's father and uncle accompanied her to the bus stop today, where they spotted the suspect at the intersection of Ola Avenue and Indiana Street.
While they called police, the girl's family tried to restrain the man, who tried to get away, police said. A scuffle ensued, but the suspect, later identified as Alfredo Rivera, 45, of Spring Hill, got the worst of it, investigators said.
"I got right behind him, grabbed him and shoved him sideways down to the ground," the girl's father told WFTS-TV, "and I said, 'Stay down, bro. Don't get up.' "
A neighbor who saw the incident told WFTS: "I thought that it was school kids having a fight. The guy was on the ground already. Every time he moved, he got kicked again."
Knife, Duct Tape Found in Vehicle
By the time police arrived, Rivera's face was bloodied badly enough to require treatment at Tampa General Hospital.
Police said they are not sure what his plans for the girl were, but they found a knife, duct tape and pillows in the back of his station wagon.
"That's really scary to hear that he had those things because each time he was getting more and more aggressive," the girl's mother told WFTS-TV. "This time he was definitely going to do something."
Rivera was charged with aggravated stalking and attempted armed kidnapping and told police that they had the wrong man. As he was transferred from the hospital to jail, he had no comment for WFTS-TV.
A neighbor expressed surprise that Rivera, who is married and has two children, had been arrested.
"I just can't believe it," Richard Ayers said. "The man has always been nice and polite. Kids run up and down this road, they play, girls walk up and down. I've never seen him speak to anybody."
Police say they don't encourage people to take the law into their own hands, but some local residents were very supportive of the family.
"I'd have probably been out there kicking him too if I'd have known what was going on," said one. "I think [the family] did right. Street justice."
But the girl's father said his reaction was justified. "It's ridiculous, it's sick. I'm glad I kicked his a--, you know? I wish I would have done it a whole lot more."