These four brave teenagers are heroes!
The four hero teens, from left to right: Starlyn Rivas-Perez, Arnaud Nimenya, James Hielema and Carsyn Wright. (photo // cbc.ca)
These four Calgary teenagers typically spend their summer time by skateboarding around their town, leisurely enjoying the sights of their city. The four had made their way to Chinook Mall and had passed through the parking garage when they saw something quite alarming.
The four teenagers had found the man carrying the girl in the mall’s parking garage.
A well-dressed man was carrying what appeared to be a distressed woman – she had been screaming and crying. The young woman also appeared to be drunk, and there was no telling where this man was taking her or what he was going to do.
Reasonably, the teenagers approached and began to question the man. Upon closer inspection, the teenagers realized the young woman was actually much younger – she was only a 15-year-old girl.
“She was 15 years old… and we needed to be there for her,” said Carysn Wright, one of the teenagers on the scene.
The well-dressed man answered the teenagers’ questions as though he was just trying to help the teenage girl. He also stated he was contacting the girl’s father to be picked up. The group of teenagers decided he was being honest, and left him be. They watched as he carried her into a stairwell of the parking garage.
They had found the man sexually assaulting the girl in the stairwell.
However, the teenagers still knew something was awry, and went with their gut feeling – they knew they simply couldn’t leave the girl’s fate into this strange man’s hands. They made their way to the stairwell, only to find the man sexually assaulting the teenage girl.
“He [was] bent over [her], and just, it was disgusting,” said Wright.
The teenagers froze for a moment from shock but knew they had to intervene.
Although the man began to walk away, the teenagers refused to let him walk freely and unpunished. Three of them chased the man down, while one stayed with the distraught girl to comfort her and ensure her safety.
“He was trying to… walk away from us,” said Arnuad Nimenya, one of the teenagers who stopped the aggressor. “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.’”
It was a heart-pounding foot chase as the teenagers pursued the man. The teenagers caught the attacker, leaving him with no room to run. The man began to fight back against the teenagers, but police soon arrived and arrested the man. He was charged with sexual assault.
Realizing the amount of bravery these teens had to risk their own safety for the poor girl, police and city officials contacted the teenagers. Soon, the four were awarded for their courageous acts at the Chief Awards Gala.
photo // cbc.ca
If it had not been for these skateboarding teenagers, who knows what could have happened to the 15-year-old girl.
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