Animal Control Officers Thwart Kidnapping Of Woman, Kids: Cops

CABAZON, CA — Two Riverside County animal control officers are being crediting with helping to save a woman and two children who'd been kidnapped after the woman was seen pleading for help from the back of a vehicle on the freeway, sheriff's and Riverside County officials said Friday.

The incident began at around 2 p.m. Thursday on Interstate 10 in Cabazon, when Animal Control Lt. Luis Rosa and Sgt. Miguel Hernandez saw a woman waving at them from the back of an SUV, according to the Riverside County Department of Animal Services.

The woman appeared to be in distress and "was waving to us, as if to say 'Help me! Help me!"' Rosa said. The SUV then "zipped across multiple lanes" and exited at Haugen Lehmann Way, then reentered eastbound Interstate 10.

Rosa and Hernandez informed additional law enforcement agencies, which followed the driver — later identified by police as 24-year-old Joel Valencia — as he entered state Route 62 toward Yucca Valley.

According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, deputies from the Morongo Basin Station soon spotted Valencia's vehicle and tried to pull him over in the town of Yucca Valley.

"Valencia failed to yield to the deputies’ lights and sirens and led deputies on a short pursuit," the sheriff's department said in a news release.

Eventually, Valencia stopped and was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and failure to yield.

Sheriff's officials said they learned Valencia had told the woman he'd drive her home, but instead kept going on the Interstate.

"The victim believed Valencia would drive her to her residence in Bloomington, but instead of driving the victim to her residence, Valencia drove eastbound on the I-10 freeway against the victim's will," officials said.

As for the alert animal control officers who spotted the woman, they say they "felt very good" that they were able to assist.

"We'll never know for sure, but we feel that we may have saved her life and maybe stopped him from taking his own life," Lt. Rosa said. "We hope she'll be OK."

— Images courtesy Riverside County Department of Animal Services