Police are frantically searching for a 16-year-old girl who snatched off the street by a group of men in New York City.
According to reports, Karol Sanchez was walking along Eagle Avenue at around 11.20pm local time on Monday evening, when a four-door beige sedan pulled over nearby.
Surveillance footage released by New York Police Department shows two men jumping out of the car in the pouring rain before snatching Karol and dragging her into the backseat:
The teen’s mum desperately tried to pull her daughter back, but is quickly knocked to the ground by the kidnappers.
On Tuesday, police issued an amber alert for the missing teen, who is believed not to know her kidnappers, offering a reward of $2,500 for any information that leads to Karol’s location.
The notice reads:
The child was taken under circumstances that lead police to believe that they are in imminent danger of serious harm and/or death.
Karol is described to be 5ft 5in tall and weighing around 150lbs. She has short black hair and brown eyes, and she was last seen wearing a blue bubble jacket, a white jumper, blue jeans, black trainers and a white backpack.
Destiny David, 20, who is a family friend of Karol and her mother, said the news of the kidnapping has hit their Honduran community hard.
She told the New York Times:
We all know each other. We don’t know why they took her. We just want her to be found soon.
Police Chief Rodney Harrison took to Twitter to share news of the kidnap in the hope someone would come forward with information regarding her whereabouts.
He wrote:
Last night Karol Sanchez (16 years-old) was walking with her mother near Eagle Avenue and E 156 Street in the Bronx, when four men forced her into a beige Sedan and fled the scene. If you have any information in regard, please call 800-577-TIPS
Let’s hope Karol is found alive and well soon, and her kidnappers are brought to justice.
Anyone with information on the identities of these men, or information on the incident itself, is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.