Atlanta police body camera footage released Thursday shows an officer comforting a frantic 9-year-old boy the moment he is rescued from his mother’s car that had just been allegedly stolen Monday morning.
The boy was sitting in the backseat as his mother got out and left the car running in the parking lot of a Goodwill store at 888 Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard in southwest Atlanta around 8:45 a.m., police said. A man allegedly jumped into the car and sped away.
Atlanta officers, along with the Georgia State Patrol and Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, eventually located the car by 9:30 a.m. with help from the boy’s mother, who used a location feature on her son’s cellphone to track the car. Troopers ultimately had to use a PIT maneuver to immobilize the vehicle, causing it to crash.
WARNING: The video below contains offensive language.
After the crash, officers detained the suspect, 38-year-old Darius White, as the boy is shown crawling out of the back passenger’s-side window. Another officer ran to comfort the child, who was visibly upset and asking for his mother.
“You did a good job! You did a good job!” the officer tells the boy on the video as he places him on the hood of a police cruiser and rubs his shoulders.
The officer holds the boy’s face and asks if he’s OK, to which the boy confirms that he is.
“I want to go now,” the boy tells the officer after hearing he is going to be taken to his mother.
The child was unharmed but was taken to a children’s hospital as a precaution.
“Not all heroes wear capes. We thank all the officers and agencies involved in apprehending this suspect and getting this child to safety,” Atlanta police wrote in a social media post sharing the body camera video. “We are happy to report the child and his mother have been reunited.”
White was charged with kidnapping, cruelty toward children and theft by taking.
“We again remind the community to lock their cars and remove all valuables, including their children, when exiting their vehicles,” police said.
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