DETROIT, Michigan — A routine stop at a gas station turned into a life-saving moment after a clerk intervened in what police say was an armed kidnapping of a teenage girl earlier this month.
Authorities said the 16-year-old was abducted at gunpoint while waiting for a school bus in Hamtramck on April 13. The suspect later brought the girl to a Sunoco station in nearby Detroit, where clerk Abdulrahman Abohatem became suspicious when the man instructed the girl to pay for cigarettes.
Abohatem said the girl silently mouthed “help,” prompting him to step in. He positioned himself between the suspect and the victim and ordered the man to leave. At the same time, classmates who witnessed the abduction tracked the girl’s phone and alerted police, who arrived as the suspect was being escorted out…