Four friends saw stranger walking with a 'screaming' woman and knew it wasn't right—their intervention saved her
Trigger Warning: This article contains themes of abuse that some readers may find distressing.
Being observant costs nothing and often, saves a life. Four young men — Arnaud Nimenya, James Hielema, Starlyn Rivas-Perez, and Carsyn Wright — ensured that their presence and quick-thinking helped save the life of a woman who was in grave danger, per CBC News. The quad noticed that the woman, who was passing by with a man, didn't seem in her senses and stepped in to help. They even managed to chase down and hold the suspect until police arrived to arrest him.
The young skateboarders were hanging out when they spotted the woman with a strange man. They bravely walked up to him and questioned him. “She was screaming and yelling. She just wanted to be out of there. She was all scuffed up and dirty," recalled Wright, one of the four men. The stranger made up an excuse, saying he was trying to call up her father. The men still remained suspicious and decided to observe the duo from a distance. "You don't want to really think of the worst in somebody like that. You don't want that situation to be real so you just brush it off and hope for the best," Wright said on why they let the stranger leave after questioning him for the first time. The stranger, however, went on to take the victim to a stairwell.
The group decided to check up on the woman again. However, when they returned, they were appalled to see the vile man assaulting the woman. "He had her in a stairwell, bent over, and just, it was disgusting," Wright recalled. Nimenya, another one of the skateboarders, noted that they “froze” and had no idea how to respond to the scenario. "You walk in and you see something like that and you freeze. You don't know what to do,” he said. Before the 4 could do anything, the man tried to casually escape as if he had done nothing wrong. "He was trying to walk out and walk away from us. He pushed me aggressively out of the way, kinda just gives me the smile, like, 'I can do this. You can't do anything about it,’ (sic)” Nimenya recounted. It was clear to the boys that something had to be done. They were sure he wasn’t to get away.
The young men split up, assessed and acted on the situation. While three of them chased the man on their longboards, one of them remained with the victim. The boys chased down the man and ensured he was taken away by the cops. Despite being afraid of their actions, they bravely spoke with authorities to help them put him in custody. “You can’t just leave a young girl like that. She was 15 years old and she needed help and we needed to be there for her,” one of the boys said in an interview. He described his actions as nothing but “ethical” and hoped that others could be as humane as they were in similar situations. The four men were given a bravery award from Calgary Police Chief Roger Chaffin for showing up and acting astutely and courageously.