Teenage boys and a red traffic light: An usual hero story

 The red light at a traffic signal lasts approximately 120 seconds. While this may not seem like a long time, it was enough for these teens to save a life.

This story began in Dallas, Texas where two friends, Aaron Arias and Jamal Harris experienced a life-changing incident together..

 Aaron and Jamal shared their passion for automotive, they both loved cars and knew almost everything about them. Aaron had just passed his driving test and took Jamal out for drives every chance they got, their rides together was one of the things they enjoyed the most.

It is said that driving in Texas is a way of life. If the destination is within the lines, people are driving to it. Roads are  jammed with personal vehicles almost all the time. To ensure a smooth flow and control of this traffic, endless signals are spread across the city. Before they knew it, the boys came to a stop at a red light.

Aaron was tapping his fingers on the wheel, humming along to the tunes Jamal picked out. Jamal, however, was preoccupied with the blonde in a black car next to theirs. She was dressed in a pretty dress, some minimal jewelry, her golden hair fell in ringlets on her shoulder. She was beautiful, no doubt, but there was something off about her.

Jamal then looked at the driver in the front seat. He was black with cropped hair and wasn’t dressed in a uniform, he was definitely not her personal driver. When the driver turned around to look at the blonde, she immediately looked away, her gaze set downwards into her lap. 

Jamal noticed the girl looking at him from the corner of her eyes. He could sense her discomfort, he looked away assuming it was because of his gaze. The driver turned around to look at Jamal, Aaron and then his look shifted to the girl. Their eyes met for a second, the girl immediately looked away from the driver again. Jamal frowned, something odd was going on.

Jamal’s eyes landed on the girl again and this time she was looking directly at him, except he could read something off in her eyes, fear. Jamal was now almost convinced that there was something seriously wrong about the driver. 

The light went green before he could say anything to Aaron,  the driver stepped on the accelerator and drove away, disappearing from their sight. Jamal couldn’t stop thinking about the girl and her troubling looks, he could sense something was wrong but he was unable to put his hand on it.

A few miles down the road, Jamal spotted the car again. He couldn’t make out much of what was happening from behind but he could see that the girl was desperately looking around from her window. The driver was still driving fast, as if his life depended on it.  He had to stop eventually at a red light, the same Jamal and Aaron stopped at almost the same time. Their cars were right next to each other, Jamal seized his chance and asked Aaron to have a look at the girl in the backseat.

Aaron didn’t notice the fear in the girl’s eyes, he just assumed that Jamal was talking about how pretty the girl was. However,  Jamal noticed her gaze again, this time she was mouthing something to him.

He had to concentrate really hard to understand what her lips trembling lips were trying to say. Jamal’s eyes widened when he understood what she was trying to tell him . She was mouthing “H-E-L-P M-E” .

He immediately asked  Aaron to follow the car as he dialed 911 from his phone.. The operator answered the call, “911, what’s your emergency?” Jamal responded with, “Yes, I’m on the highway… I’m witnessing a robbery. No, not a robbery, a kidnapping”

The boys told the operator they were on highway 175 currently following the car. The operator asked them to elaborate on what they saw and how they were sure that it might be a kidnapping. Aaron responded, “We looked at the back seat and the blonde female was saying ‘help me!’ or something, whispering it”.

The boys were right behind the car when they reached a busy road, before they could tell, the car disappeared into one of the secondary lanes. Aaron started panicking, he couldn’t afford to lose sight of the car, especially not now that they know the girl is in imminent danger.

Aaron decided to go with his gut instinct and drove into the alley next to the main road.

After driving at a very high speed for several minutes of panic, Jamal finally spotted the black car a few miles ahead. Aaron jumped on the gas pedal and their car roared forward. They were back at it again, chasing the guy down the streets of Texas.

The boys were talking to the operator when they noticed the car slowing down only to speed off again insanely after. Aaron pressed down on the accelerator and raced behind him. The car’s headlights were turned on and off repeatedly; the driver knew he was being followed.

 

Even though the driver was trying to intimidate them, the brave teens remained focused. They continued racing after him while staying on the call with the 911 operator.

The operator on the call asked Aaron and Jamal to turn on their car’s hazard lights so that the nearest patrol car would spot them and intervene. They did as told and continued their chase. 

 

Before they knew it, they  heard the police sirens coming from behind them. They finally breathed a sigh of relief. Aaron saw the police cars taking over them and chasing the black car now, getting the driver to pull over.

At the end of the road, Aaron spotted a group of police vehicles waiting for them. The driver was forced to pull down, after which he was handcuffed. The girl was let out of the cars, trembling in tears, not believing that she was finally safe and sound.

She ran over to Aaron and Jamal the moment she saw them. She thanked them sincerely for saving her life, if it weren’t for them, she would have been in a much darker place, with death awaiting around the corner. The police applauded the boys and praised their courage and bravery. 

The cops searched the driver and then proceeded to thoroughly examine the car. Turns out, the car wasn’t even his, it belonged to the victim. A knife was found in the cushion of the front seat in addition to a handgun in glove compartment. His intentions were crystal clear and these findings were obvious evidence for it.

Even though nobody got hurt, the police had to investigate all the details. They wanted to know how the girl ended up in her own car with a kidnapper..

The whole story began around 11 pm from the previous  night, when the girl was coming home from a young networking party. She was walking to her car when she felt three sharp blows on her head. 

The man then forced her into the backseat of her car and threw away her cellphone, to make sure that no one would be able to contact her or even trace her position. The girl further told them that the head injury made her faint, losing consciousness of her surrounding and any link to reality.

When she finally regained consciousness, the man was still driving and the sun was up. That is when they halted at a red light and she spotted the boys in the car next to hers. This is where she made her first eye contact with Jamal, hoping he’d notice her and understand that she was in grave danger.

The driver was identified by the police as Charles Atkins Lewis Jr. He was charged with aggravated kidnapping and the use of an unlicensed weapon, as the handgun which was found in his car was not licensed. 

His motives remained to be identified however, since he had no prior contact to the girl, and didn’t know her from anywhere, personal reasons were eliminated. The man had a clean record so he was not a serial killer either. The police could not find a connection between the culprit and the victim.

Atkins chose to remain silent during his interrogation. He was charged and sent to jail on $50,000 bond. The man’s lawyer insisted  his client is innocent until proven guilty. He will be attending all his court hearings but until then there is no lead on why he tried to kidnap the girl. 

The boys were highly praised by the community for their courage and acting smart. Even though they were in a chase with a dangerous and armed man, they still kept chasing him and alerting the authorities until he was stopped and the girl saved, which is something even adults wouldn’t do had they been in their shoes.  

Aaron and Jamal became public faces as the story of their bravery was aired on TV, reported in written press and became the talk of the media for a while.

The victim, who chose to remain anonymous, had called them heroes in all of her interviews. But the boys were extremely humble about it. They said, “She says we saved her life. I guess you could say we did. But I don’t want to be that person who says they’re a hero.”