Before someone tried to abduct her, a six-year-old girl in Miami named Ah’lyric had learned one strategy from her mother to protect herself if ever faced with such a plight.
Bite.
She did just that. And her swift action – as well as eventual identification of her assailant leading to the arrest of a 32-year-old man now facing charges of attempted kidnapping and child abuse – has drawn national attention because her experience constitutes many parents’ worst nightmare.
Police records allege that Ah’lyric had been playing with her siblings in a courtyard outside her family’s apartment on Thursday and was alone on a stairway when Leonardo Venegas left a white Range Rover, entered the complex and grabbed her arm.
As she fought back, he picked her up, police said. That’s when she bit.
“The victim bit the defendant on the arm, causing him to drop her. The defendant slapped the victim and ran away towards the front of the apartment complex,” the arrest affidavit obtained by NBC News noted. “The victim ran around the building towards the front to tell her aunt what had just occurred.”
Security footage showed the vehicle parked near the complex before the attack on Ah’lyric. Footage showed him walking toward the apartment complex and – not long after – running back to the parking lot before the Range Rover leaves the scene.
The footage captured the car’s license plate, and police found Venegas in the car on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the girl identified Venegas as the man in the footage.
When questioned, Venegas said he drove the car and told authorities that he had been in the area hunting for houses to buy. But police indicated in their report on the case that the complex he allegedly entered was operated by the federal housing and urban development department. No “for sale” signs were in the area, police noted.
Venegas claimed he fled from the apartment after he heard screaming. Once police asked about his interaction with the six-year-old girl, Venegas asked for an attorney, and he was jailed.
Venegas remains in jail without bond as of Tuesday. He was also ordered held at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, NBC News reported.
“I’m glad she knew how to fight back,” her mother, Teshia McGill, told NBC South Florida.
