Yesterday night, in Chicago, Illinois one of many nightmares any parent fears almost came true for the Davis family. As Kelly Davis said, all they wanted was to "..take a nighttime adventure..to the city." Sure enough, the adventure the family was looking for, turned into much more of a drastic memory for everyone. The family loves the Picasso statue, especially his eldest daughter, so they thought it would be a great idea to take the kids over to it, to play. Davis' two daughters love the slide at the base of the statue which is where most of this terrifying nightmare took place. Kelly spotted a man, who from afar looked quite harmless. However, this man, later identified as James Gates, began getting closer and closer to the statue. Kelly, thinking the man was going to ask for change or something of the sort didn't quite process fully what the man was truly after until he noticed a few minutes later, the mans set "fixation" on his 2 year old daughter, Myla. Instantly, Kelly stepped in front of the man blocking not only Gates' sight of Myla but also his reach. Once Gates tried grabbing for Myla was when things erupted quickly. Gates started yelling and claiming that Myla was his daughter and that only infuriated Kelly Davis much more causing him to push Gates and start a fight between the two. By this time, a witness of the event had already called the authorities, Gates was so determined to get through Davis to Myla that he actually got physical and ended up punching Davis in the nose. Soon after Gates began running. He was later caught and charged with "kidnapping with the threat of force and a misdemeanor battery charge, according to the Chicago Police Department."
I found this article interesting because of the topic of kidnapping. The part that I found most interesting was the fact that Kelly Davis found the alleged kidnapper, James Gates harmless before the attack. It's crazy to me to think that anyone could be capable of such a horrible crime and that you truly cannot trust anyone. At any given moment, had Davis turned his back for a second, Myla could have been kidnapped. People have serious issues and I believe that this article will have an affect on people who read it and remind families the dangers of strangers and that they are everywhere. No family deserves to have to go through such a close call like the Davis family. I don't think that the Davis family as a whole, will ever forget that day and from now on will be more cautious than ever.
Another reason why this article caught my attention instantly was because I can almost relate to the tragedy this family faced. Back in kindergarten, as a five year old little girl, my best friend and I ran away from daycare. Oblivious to the fact that a stranger could have easily taken us only made our little journey that much more dangerous. We set forth on a main road and walked along the sidewalk, which is where we encountered a man walking along the sidewalk toward us, by then we had been missing an hour, more or less and the man started talking to us. He talked and talked and talked until finally he asked us to follow him because he wanted to show us something. To us the man seemed nice and harmless, but we were old enough to know that we should never go anywhere with a stranger. However, after we said no and kept walking the man began following us, we were both so scared. Luckily a few minutes later, the police came around the corner with their lights on and stopped their cars along the sidewalk and ran up to us. They asked us a bunch of questions, then realizing that we were the two missing kindergartner's. Both my friend and I instantly broke down in tears and got into the police cars so they could take us back to our parents. We both looked out the window to find that the man who was following us had disappeared. Still to this day it makes me wonder what would have happened if the police hadn't found us when they did. It was a close call, and definitely a memory that I will never forget.
