An 11-year-old girl was arrested after she falsely reported that her friend had been kidnapped.
The youngster texted 911 and told officers that her 14-year-old pal had been abducted by ‘an armed male driving a white van’ in Florida, USA.
She sent the message at around 9.45am local time and also claimed she was following behind the van in a blue Jeep.
Her bogus alert sparked a huge scale police search operation for the vehicle with multiple units and air support called into action, reports ABC7.
Volusia Sheriff’s Office said: ‘For the next hour and a half, the girl texted updates including a description of the male suspect and that he had a gun.’
But when no suspect was found, officers tracked down the original location of the phone where the messages were sent from.
It brought them to a home in Poppy Lane, Port Orange at 10.23am and police then confronted her father who told them she was inside the property with her family.
‘As deputies approached the girl, she was holding her cell phone, which was ringing as she walked out to meet the deputies,’ police said.
‘When answered, Volusia Sheriff’s Dispatch was on the line and deputies verified they were on scene.’
The girl reportedly told deputies she got the idea to prank 911 through a challenge she had discovered on YouTube and went through with it because she ‘thought it would be funny’.
During bodycam footage of her arrest, an officer is heard telling her: ‘Stay calm, you can talk to your parents.
‘We can open the window and let you talk to them. Nothing is going to happen to you. Do you understand that?’
She nods her head to say ‘yes’ before her father says: ‘I’m telling you this right now, you’re going to take this as a lesson at 11 years old, that if you do something stupid in the future, you’re going to enjoy those cuffs.’
The girl replies: ‘I’m not going to do this again.’
The officer then tells her: ‘This is going to be an opportunity for you to turn this into a learning experience. This is not something you’re going to carry with you for the rest of your life, okay?’
Sheriff Mike Chitwood said: ‘This kind of prank activity is dangerous – we’re going to investigate every incident but today it wasted valuable resources that might have helped someone else who legitimately needed our help.’
The girl has been charged with making a false police report concerning the use of a firearm in a violent manner and misuse of 911.
She was taken to the family resource centre after the incident before being transferred to the Volusia regional juvenile detention centre, where she currently remains.
In the UK, a 14-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving after a girl, seven, was killed by a motorbike in a hit-and-run crash.
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