Miami Police arrested Leonardo Venegas on Saturday after he attempted to abduct a 6-year-old girl in a Miami apartment complex last week but was unsuccessful after she fought back and managed to escape.
Ah’lyric was playing outside on Thursday with her siblings in their apartment complex’s courtyard, located in the 6500 block of Northeast Second Avenue when they noticed a white Range Rover parked outside. The siblings went inside, and the 6-year-old was briefly left alone at the rear end of her stairway before things almost turned bad.
According to an arrest report, Venegas suddenly grabbed Ah’lyric by the arm while she was sitting on the stairway. As he started to pull her by the arm, she fought back to pull away from him, and then he picked her up.
As Venegas started to carry her away, Ah’lyric bit him on the arm and was able to escape after she was dropped.
“I bit him,” Ah’lyric later told Local 10 News.
Then he reportedly slapped the young girl and fled from the scene.
“He picked me up, and then he slapped me,” she said. “Then he threw me on the floor and started running.”
Miami Police officers were able to locate the 32-year-old by the car’s license plates after they gathered CCTV footage from when he entered the complex.
Venegas told investigators he was in the area looking for houses to buy when police questioned him. Authorities found it strange because the complex is Housing and Urban Development or HUD housing, and there were no for-sale signs in the area.
He identified himself in the CCTV footage and said he started running when he heard someone scream. Then, he asked for a lawyer when authorities questioned his encounter with a little girl.
Venegas was charged with kidnapping and child abuse.
“I’m glad she knew how to fight back,” mother Teshia McGill said to NBC6.
Officer Kiara Delva, a Miami Police Department spokesperson, is concerned that there could be other victims as well.
“We’re quite concerned because obviously this subject is quite brazen that he would do something like this in a community where there’s many other people around that could have saw exactly what occurred,” she said to Local 10 News. “We’re hoping that anybody in the community that may have been a victim to being assaulted by this particular suspect comes forward and reports it to the police so they can continue their investigation.”
Venegas is being held without bond at the Metro West Detention Center for the criminal charges and on an immigration hold, according to jail records.
“You have to teach your kids not to speak to strangers and protect themselves even when you’re not around,” McGill said to Local 10 News.
