Emily
On average, there are more than 320,000 victims of sexual assault each year in the United States alone. These stats are beyond devastating, especially when only 5 out of every 1,000 perpetrators of assault will end up in prison.
This is why it can be extremely heartening to hear a story about a victim who actually did get justice against her attacker after four teen boys rescued her during the assault.
Four Canadian teenagers are being hailed as heroes after stepping in to save a young girl.
Pictured from left to right are Arnaud Nimenya, James Hielema, Starlyn Rivas-Perez, and Carsyn Wright
The boys were skateboarding in a local mall’s parking garage when they saw a 15-year-old girl, who appeared to be intoxicated, being forcibly dragged by a man who said he was her father.
“She was screaming and yelling. She just wanted to be out of there. She was all scuffed up and dirty,” Wright said.
Sensing trouble, the boys approached the man for more information. The man continued to insist that he was the young girl’s father and she didn’t say anything, so the boys left the garage.
But their guts told them something still didn’t feel right about the situation.
“You don’t want to really think of the worst in somebody like that. You don’t want that situation to be real, so you just brush it off and hope for the best,” Wright said.
The four teens returned to the garage to speak with the man again and when they arrived they found him assaulting the young girl.
“He had her in a stairwell, bent over, and just, it was disgusting,” Wright said.
“You walk in, and you see something like that, and you freeze. You don’t know what to do,” Nimenya said.
Once they realized what was happening, the boys immediately took action to stop the attack.
As soon as the man saw the boys returning, he tried to run away.
“He was trying to walk out and walk away from us,” said Nimenya. “He pushed me aggressively out of the way, kinda like just gives me the smile, like, ‘I can do this. You can’t do anything about it.'” ‘
Of course, the boys weren’t about to let the predator escape.
One of them stayed with the young girl, while the other three chased the man down.
According to CBC, the man grabbed one of the teens’ skateboards and attempted to use it as a weapon. Fortunately, the teens were able to subdue the man and keep him occupied until authorities arrived.
Local police praised the four boys and honored their brave actions at the Chief’s Awards Gala.
When asked why they decided to turn back Wright said, “You can’t just leave a girl and she was a young girl. She was 15 years old and she needed help and we needed to be there for her. I hope anybody else who’s in that situation would come to her help because it’s just the humane thing to do.”
Kudos, gentlemen.
h/t Uplifting Today, CBC
