A 16-year-old girl is sharing her story after a man tried to abduct her in South Miami. NBC6’s Lena Salzbank reports
A South Miami man was arrested after police said he tried to kidnap a girl who was able to fight him off early Thursday.
Brian Gamboa, 32, was arrested on charges of attempted kidnapping and battery of a child, Miami-Dade jail records showed.
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WATCH HEREAccording to an arrest report, police responded to an incident involving a girl who was yelling and crying for help in the 6100 block of Southwest 86th Street around 12:30 a.m.
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Officers found the girl who said a man in a blue vehicle with a temporary paper tag grabbed her by the shoulders and back of her neck to try to force her into his vehicle.
"He grabbed me here and this is when I started swinging at him, too, and then scratched on my arms. And he pushed me to the ground ... and this knee can’t bend," 16-year-old Valerie told NBC6 while showing the scratches on her body.
She said she fought back and hit the man in the head with her cell phone while yelling for help, and the man fled the scene in his vehicle.
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The girl turned in a Gucci hat that she said fell off the man's head during the struggle, and said he was wearing a white shirt, black shorts and slides on his feet, and smelled like alcohol, the report said.
"I was just saying, help me, I was attacked, call the police," Valerie recalled. "I was banging on doors...I just laid down on the ground because I was so tired.
The girl had lacerations and scratches all over her body, and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded to check her out.
A short time later, an officer stopped a vehicle that was being driven by Gamboa and that matched the description of the one from the incident, the report said.
Gamboa had lacerations on his face, elbows and knees and a contusion on the back of his head, and the girl identified him as the man who attacked her, the report said.
Gamboa was asked if the Gucci hat was his and he tried to claim that officers had removed it from him during the traffic stop, the report said.
Police booked Gamboa into jail. He appeared before a judge later Thursday who set his bond at $30,000 with house arrest.
