School Aide Thwarts Alleged Abduction En Route to Work

'It was kind of like a superwoman power thing. I can't believe it did that!'
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 19, 2015 1:25 PM CDT
School Aide Thwarts Alleged Abduction En Route to Work
Santiago Salazar   (Antioch Police Department via ABC 7)

Sandra Ferguson, a teacher's aide at Sutter Elementary School in Antioch, Calif., recognized a student at the school sitting in the front seat of a car while Ferguson was on her way to work Friday. Not recognizing the man, and noticing the 11-year-old girl looked frightened, Ferguson stopped and took action. "I said, 'Sweetheart, is that your dad?' She said, 'No, he's a friend.' I said, 'No, he's not your friend!'" Ferguson tells ABC 7. "I put my car in front of his and blocked him in. I told her, 'You get out of that truck right now!'" Police say by doing so, Ferguson stopped an alleged kidnapping.

Ferguson called police, and they arrested Santiago Salazar, 51, on suspicion of kidnapping; he didn't try to flee. Police say the girl, who was not harmed, did not know Salazar, but he lured her to his vehicle and then grabbed her wrist to pull her inside. "It was kind of like a superwoman power thing," Ferguson tells the New York Daily News of her good deed. "It was like, wow, I can't believe it did that!" (More kidnapping stories.)

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