PORT ORANGE, Fla. - An 11 year-old girl was arrested in Port Orange on Wednesday after allegedly making a false statement to police that her friend had been kidnapped. The girl, whose identity will not be disseminated, reportedly used Volusia County's text-to-911 feature.
The incident began at 9:45 am Wednesday when dispatchers received a text that a juvenile had been kidnapped by an armed adult male who was driving a white van. The purported suspect was said to be heading south on I-95 in Oak Hill.
The text tip also reportedly said that the reporting party was pursuing in a blue Jeep. Updates came in to dispatchers, providing a description of the supposed kidnapper and the detail that he had a firearm. Dispatchers tracked the location of the cell phone that was sending the updates to a home in Port Orange, and deputies responded to that location.
Deputies arrived at 10:23 am to the girl's home, where her father answered the door. The dispatch center called the girl's phone, and according to the VSO's release it began to ring in front of the deputies. Upon the girl answering the call, the dispatch center confirmed the deputies were in fact at the same location as the phone they'd been tracking.
Upon being questioned, the girl reportedly admitted to falsifying the report, and said that she got the idea from a YouTube prank challenge. She was subsequently arrested and charged with falsifying a police report concerning the use of a firearm in a violent manner and misuse of 911. The first of the two charges is a felony and the second a misdemeanor.
“This kind of prank activity is dangerous," said Sheriff Mike Chitwood on the incident. "We’re going to investigate every incident but today it wasted valuable resources that might have helped someone else who legitimately needed our help.”
