Target Employee Helps Find Kidnapped Child

David Douglas, 43, is in jail on a $4 million bond because of an observant employee.

Halle Berry in “The Call”

Reading this story reminded me of the movie, “The Call.”  I’ve watched that movie at least 4 times.   It has a kidnapping with a bad ending, and a kidnapping with a good ending.  The one with the good ending is because of a 911 operator who listened to the recording of a call, and hearing a sound, remembered that sound when she went to the house that the police had visited, but did not find the kidnapper neither his victim. Halle Berry plays the character Jordan Turner, the 911 operator.

Roxanna Ramirez is a real life Jordan Turner.

Roxanna Ramirez

Roxanna Ramirez, a loss prevention specialist at the Target Pittsburg store in the Bay Area of California, monitors for in-store thefts.  She noticed a man walking around in the store with a backpack and said he gave her a “weird feeling.”   Roxanna watched the monitors and saw him go to his car, a gold Toyota Camry.  She zoomed in and wrote down the license plate number.  When she returned from lunch, the man was no longer in the parking lot.

After her shift when she arrived home, her girlfriend said that she noticed an Amber alert on her Facebook account.  The suspect had followed a mother and daughter home from the Antioch Walmart and pulled the daughter into his car, police said.

7-year-old Natalie Calvo

Ramirez’ girlfriend proceeded to read aloud the details of the reported kidnapping, including a vague description of the car and the suspect.

The Dailymail reports:

“I was like, ‘Hold on …’ This was the guy in the store. He looked like that, and that matched the car description.”

Roxanna called the police with the information from her notebook.  The police, using the license plate number, were able to identify Douglas.   They learned he frequented the Antioch Marina, which is where an officer found him and 7-year-old Natalie Calvo at about 10:45 p.m.  Natalie was reunited with her family.

‘What she did was what truly broke the case,’ said Antioch police Lt. Tammany Brooks.

David Douglas
Arrested

Detectives were so impressed by her preemptive actions they went to her house to congratulate her, according to the Times.

“That’s when my heart started jumping,” said Roxanna, “I was feeling great that I helped bring the little girl home.”

I am so happy that Natalie’s kidnapping has a good ending.