“Fight back and fight back” – hassteveclarkresignedyet

LAUDERHILL, Fla. (WPLG). Authorities in Florida are looking for a man who tried to kidnap a 13-year-old girl as she walked home from school. This incident was caught on camera.

Kimora Reid, 13, says she was walking home after getting off the school bus Oct. 7 along the 5000 block of Northwest 18th Court in Lauderhill. She heard a man come up behind her, but thought he was just running.

“I moved away from him because a lot of people here are running,” Kimora said.

Surveillance video captured the moments when the man began to approach the teenager, grabbed her and wrestled with her.

“Followed me into the grass, then he pulls my leg. He dragged my leg, my foot, to the floor,” Kimora said. “I was just scared.”

Fortunately, the suspect fled when Kimora started screaming and the 13-year-old girl was not injured.

“I was screaming at him saying, ‘What are you doing? Get off me,” Kimora said. “I know most people freeze. They shouldn’t freeze at this point. They should fight back and fight back.”

Investigators call the incident an attempted kidnapping.

“She was definitely a brave kid to put up a fight,” said Antonio Gonzalez of Lauderdale police. “We don’t know if she was being followed (or) this guy was just looking around the area waiting for a potential victim.”

Police described the suspect as a dark-skinned man in his mid-20s, thin, with short hair. He was wearing a yellow shirt and red shorts and appeared to be alone.

Kimora’s mother, Lois Kerr, is just glad her daughter got home safely that day.

“When I saw this (video), everything inside me turned upside down. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, to my child,” Kerr said.

Since then, she says she was just reassuring Kimora and hoping the man who attacked her would be caught soon.

“She is safe. She’s going to be fine and I’m not going to leave her,” Kerr said. “He needs to seek Jesus, and secondly, he needs to surrender.”

Authorities put out a flyer Wednesday in hopes that someone can come forward with information that could help locate the suspect.