Good Samaritan Rescues Girl From Alleged Kidnapping In Santa Ana

SANTA ANA, CA — Southland resident Amy Martinez was walking toward Lathrop Intermediate School before 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning when she was grabbed by a homeless woman, Santa Ana Police said.

"The suspect wrapped the 12-year-old girl in a one-handed hug and began dragging her away," SAPD Cpl. Anthony Bertangna said.

Luckily, a passerby noticed and did not look the other way.

The good Samaritan, who has chosen to remain nameless, thought something looked amiss, stopped her car in a parking lot on the Northwest corner of McFadden Avenue and Main Street, and confronted the pair from her open car window, Bertagna reported.

All that she asked the girl was, "Are you okay?" and the victim looked at her and shook her head no, and she could see the fright in her eyes, Bertagna said. After a pause, the good Samaritan listened to her motherly instincts and shouted, 'She's mine. Give her back!' then, 'That's my child!' It took three times of her saying that and the woman let her go," Bertagna said.

With the child safely in her car, the good Samaritan drove with the child to Lathrop Middle School and phoned police with a description of the disheveled would-be-kidnapper who was found after the police "saturated" the area and tracked her down.

Claudia Hernandez Diaz, 34, was found, arrested and booked on suspicion of kidnapping a minor younger than 14, Bertagna said. Police have not established any sort of motive, he said.

The corporal praised the girl's rescuer.

"We always say if you see something say something. Well, she saw something and did something," Bertagna said.

According to a report from the Orange County Register, Sandra Martinez, Amy's mother, was stunned when she learned of the near-abduction.

"I have no way to describe how I felt when the principal told me," she told the Register. "You don't expect it to happen to you and when it does you don't know how to react."

Her mother told the Register that the incident has unnerved Amy, who will be driven to school from now on by a family member.

Photo, courtesy Santa Ana Police Department