Volusia County sheriff’s deputies arrested an 11-year-old child for allegedly falsely reporting her friend’s kidnapping.
On Wednesday, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office reported that a girl from Port Orange texted 911, claiming her friend was kidnapped by a man driving a white van on Interstate 95 South in Oak Hill. She also sent subsequent texts describing the suspect, mentioning that he had a gun.
Deputies and local police authorities, including those from Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach, and Port Orange, searched thoroughly for the van described in the report but could not locate it. As a result, they decided to track down the cell phone used to make the false report.
As deputies arrived at the girl’s home, dispatch kept calling her until she eventually came out to talk to them. She then confessed that the entire incident was part of a YouTube challenge she thought “would be funny.”
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.”
