Criminals can strike at any place and at any time.
Some split-second decisions can change the outcome.
And a Florida teen went to hell and back to survive one scary criminal attack.
Teenage girl fights off a man who tried to abduct her
A teenage girl in Florida managed to beat back a man who tried to kidnap her.
Valerie, a 16-year-old was walking in her neighborhood in South Miami, Florida after midnight when a strange car pulled up next to her.
Brian Gamboa, 32 and a native of New York, allegedly tried to grab and drag her into his car.
“He just screamed, ‘Shush,’ and he went for my arm,” Valerie recalled.
Valerie was not going to go down without a fight.
The teenage girl began punching and kicking at the older man.
“A guy came out of the car, he approached me and started attacking me by my shoulders and the back of my head,” Valerie told CBS News Miami. “I fought back – I threw my phone at him, I started kicking him, I started screaming, I started punching him.”
Gamboa reportedly tried to push her to the ground.
“I pushed him off with this leg, so I can’t bend this knee right now, and then I started hitting him with my phone, which is broken. I dragged him down with me,” Valerie stated. “Then I kicked him in the crotch and the head and ran off. I screamed for help at a neighbor’s door.”
The alleged kidnapper took part in another crime
Valerie made it to her neighbor’s house and called 911 for help.
She suspected that Gamboa was “drunk” because he was really “wobbly.”
Miami-Dade police arrested the suspected kidnapper a few hours later after he was involved in a hit-and-run accident outside of a restaurant.
Gamboa was charged with attempted kidnapping and battery of a minor.
He had an outstanding warrant for leaving the scene of an accident with damage.
The New York native had prior arrests for driving with a suspended license and possession of marijuana.
Valerie told WSVN that she was lucky to escape her would-be kidnapper.
“It was really scary. I’m OK, except the fact that my knee is messed up. Like, I’m OK. I got pretty lucky; like, it could have been way worse for me,” Valerie stated. “I didn’t want to have a story like that. I didn’t want to have his impact on my life like that, so I was just fighting.”
Gamboa was involved in another attempted kidnapping, according to South Miami Police.
He allegedly tried to kidnap a woman at the South Miami Hospital just hours before his attempt on Valerie.
“He confronts the victim and tries to kidnap her. As you can see in the video he takes her to the ground, they’re there for several minutes, the victim is able to get away from him,” South Miami Police Sergeant Fernando Bosch said. “It’s pretty scary for the victim.”
Bosch said that this was an unusual crime for the South Miami area.
“I’ve been here seven years in South Miami. This is the first time, that I know of, that we had a case like this,” Bosch said. “There’s cameras at the hospital. You’ve got to know there are cameras in the hospital.”
Some quick thinking saved Valerie from potentially being the victim of a worse crime.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
