A 17-year-old girl who was kidnapped by a man from Powell Street Station and then pulled into a vehicle at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night was found by police Wednesday morning, according to a press release from BART.
Police arrested kidnapping suspect Jamall Blue, 37, at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning after they located him with an “associated vehicle.” The girl’s parents had filed a missing persons report after the incident at BART.
On Jul. 12, Blue was charged for one count of kidnapping by force or fear and one count of sexual battery.
BART spokesperson sent the release at 2:20 p.m. in response to inquiries earlier today about this morning’s police presence on Liberty Street. As residents left their houses at 6:50 a.m. Wednesday, they found five or six BART police cars on their street, and BART police officers outside their doors, ready to intercept residents as they headed to work.
The police told residents on the block between Valencia and Gurerro streets that they were investigating a “probable kidnapping,” and asked one resident if they could look at the cars parked at 65 Liberty St..
That resident declined to let police into the building. “Other people in the building might not have the same relationship with law enforcement that I do, so they might be uncomfortable with law enforcement coming in, so I would prefer you not,” the resident recalled telling them.
Police also asked if any of them recognized pictures of two people, a man and a woman, according to two residents.
Residents said that they were not all shown the same pictures. Some people were shown one picture of a man and one of a woman. Some were shown two pictures of one woman, one with dyed red hair and another with her hair in braids and taken straight-on like a passport photo.
According to a BART spokesperson, 65 Liberty St. did not end up being relevant to the kidnapping case.
That block of Liberty Street is mostly Victorians, some divided into multiple units and some single-family homes. The four-story contemporary apartment building on the block, at 65 Liberty, had an officer stationed near the front door.
Police left Liberty Street around 9 a.m., according W. Blake Gray, a resident and journalist. By that time, a small group of neighbors had gathered on Liberty to discuss what had happened. Only one of them, a resident who had seen someone with similarly red hair, had recognized the people in the photographs.
This article was updated on Jul. 12 to include the charges against Blue.
The most important part ~ the missing person ~ not mentioned?