FORT WORTH – Video footage captured the moment Texas police officers burst through a hotel room door and rescue a kidnapped 8-year-old girl hiding in a basket of laundry.
The body camera footage released by law enforcement shows officers make entry into a hotel room and confront the kidnapper. Once they get him secure, they clear the room and locate the frightened little girl as she popped her head out of a clothes-filled laundry basket. She had been silenced by fear of the suspect.
“Got her, we got her, we got her,” one of the officer’s yells, according to the video.
The dramatic scene capped a heart-pounding search by police. The 8-year-old was snatched off a street while walking with her mother on May 18, NBC News reported. The crime was captured on footage from a doorbell camera.
A hotel clerk in the Fort Worth suburb where the suspect was staying called local authorities after reporting something suspicious in his room at WoodSprings Suites, said Erin Dooley, a spokeswoman for the United States Attorney of the Northern District of Texas.
But responding officers from the Forest Hill Police Department didn’t find the girl during a quick search of his room, Dooley said. So the police left.
Authorities circulated an image of the suspect’s car and a tipster eventually called 911 when he saw the vehicle in the parking lot of the hotel in suburban Fort Worth, according to the report.
A team of law enforcement officers from Fort Worth Police Department, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security, returned to the hotel room and found the girl in a laundry basket, said Dooley.
“They were very worried about her well-being and her physical well-being and whether or not she’s safe,” recalled Erin Nealy Cox, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.
“When they find her, you hear how just emotional it is for everyone. They are just so happy and relieved that they have her,” she added.
The kidnapper, Michael Webb, was arrested for kidnapping. Moreover, he was convicted in September.
Consequently, Webb was sentenced to life in prison last week.
