An alleged kidnapping in the Colony Ridge community on Wednesday, Oct. 4, led to the arrest of a 16-year-old juvenile.
The juvenile and two others, who authorities have identified but not yet apprehended, are accused of kidnapping the male victim at gunpoint, taking him to a residents, forcing him to strip down to his boxes and then assaulting him.
The victim reportedly escaped his captors when they started beating him. He fled down the road screaming, “They are trying to kill me.”
His cries for help were heard by a female resident of the community, who lives on the 1100 block of CR 3479A. She reportedly told investigators with the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office that when she looked out her residence, she saw a Hispanic male running in only his boxers and yelling for help.
The female resident alerted the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office, which dispatched deputies and narcotics units who were nearby. They located the juvenile victim who provided them with a description of his captors.
“The victim stated that as he was running away from them, they began shooting at him,” according to a statement from Liberty County Sheriff’s Capt. David Meyers.
The Narcotics unit immediately went to the incident location and detained a 16-year juvenile who was near a vehicle parked in front of the residence at the incident location. It was believed that the other two suspects had gone into the residence, so Narcotic units and Patrol unit sat up a perimeter on the residence.
Based on the type of call and the possibility of two suspects inside of the residence with weapons, the Liberty County Special Response Team (SRT) was deployed to the residence. While the SRT Unit was en route to the scene, Texas Rangers completed a search warrant for the residence.
Upon the search warrant being signed by a judge, the SRT Unit made entry into the residence to detain the other two suspects; however, the house was unoccupied upon their entry. SRT Units then turned the scene over to the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division (CID) to process the crime scene. Investigators located several spent shell casings and other evidence at the scene.
Investigators, along with the Texas Rangers who were on scene, were able to obtain the identity of the two suspects who had fled the area. The 16-year-old juvenile suspect was transported to the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office Annex in Cleveland where he was processed as a juvenile and charged with Aggravated Kidnapping, Aggravated Robbery, and Aggravated Assault. The juvenile was then transported to a juvenile facility. Investigators will be obtaining warrants on the other two suspects for the same charges.
According to Meyers, “The juvenile victim was lucky to be able to escape from the three suspects, and lucky that he did not get shot during the process.”
On Thursday evening, troopers with the Texas Department of Public Safety made a traffic stop on a vehicle in the Colony Ridge community. Inside the vehicle, they reportedly found some of the weapons suspected in the kidnapping attempt, said Meyers.
Shell casings from these confiscated weapons will be analyzed to see if they are the same weapons used in the kidnapping. The two juveniles in the stopped vehicle were identified but not detained.
Juveniles with guns in the car and they were let go? Sounds a little sketchy.
More good news from Colony Ridge. The new third world of Liberty County.