Chris Garcia (l) and Temar Boggs (r)
Sometimes news items that make us feel positive about humanity are scarce. Particularly when current events are rife with upsetting situations, it's good to read about people who take great pains, sometimes even endangering their own lives, to help their fellow human beings. The following is one such story.
Temar Boggs and Chris Garcia, at the time 15 and 13 respectively, were at an apartment complex helping their friend move a couch one summer day in 2013 when they saw police cars outside. The policemen told the teens that they were looking for a lttle girl who had been abducted from her front yard earlier that day. Officers and citizens had been searching for 5-year-old Jocelyn Rojas for two hours without success.
At that time, Boggs, Garcia and five other friends, who didn't know Jocelyn, decided to look for her. At first the teens were on foot, but later, Boggs and Garcia began riding bikes to look in the surrounding neighborhoods. After almost an hour, Boggs, who had biked ahead of Garcia, saw a man driving suspiciously in the neighborhood. Boggs noticed that the man turned his car around when a group of policemen were up ahead. Boggs pedaled closer to the car, at which time Garcia caught up with him. The teens could see a little girl in the car. When the driver noticed he was seen, he panicked, stopping the car and pushing little Jocelyn out the door. She had already been assaulted after having been taken to an ice cream shop.
Boggs grabbed the little girl, who ran to him after her trauma. He rode with her on his bike for a while until deciding that wasn't safe. The young man dropped the bike and ran with the girl to find the authorities. Jocelyn clung to Temar, fearful because of her horrible experience. After delivering her safely to authorities, the teens were modest about being referred to as heroes, saying they just did what any person would do.
Boggs said in an interview,
"I had the gut feeling that I was going to find the little girl... It was like fate, it was like meant for me and Chris to be there. If we wouldn't have left (to look for the girl) who knows what would have happened to the little girl?"
The child's abductor, 73-year-old Harold Leroy Herr, was eventually caught. The kidnapper reportedly said "You're pretty, I think I'll keep you" when he grabbed her from in front of her home. Boggs and Garcia may have saved her life that day.
Read about other selfless, courageous people and their heroic acts here.
Image: Lancaster Online