TAMPA, FLA. (WSVN) - A Tampa-area deputy jumped into action after a pickup truck was carjacked with two children inside.
For a deputy, a carjacking is a high-risk call, as Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jonathan Pazmino Alvarez can attest.
“We have to draw our guns out and make sure that we got every person out of the vehicle one by one,” he said.
But when children are involved, the deputy said, that changes everything.
“My priority at that point was the lives of two kids,” he said.
Monday night, Pazmino Alvarez had just finished serving a warrant with his partner at an intersection in Tampa when a frantic father caught his eye.
“We see this gentleman running behind his truck yelling, ‘He just took my truck with my kids!'” he said. “I got in my car.”
Body camera video captured the deputy yelling at the suspect to pull over.
“Pull into the parking lot!” the deputy is heard saying.
Pazmino Alvarez got the driver, identified as 37-year-old Kevin Smith, to stop.
The next challenge for the deputy was to keep everyone calm.
“I just want to make sure they were safe, that this subject did not do anything, you know, that could harm them,” he said.
Pazmino Alvarez then ordered the driver to step out of the vehicle.
“From the moment I opened that door, he looked nervous, but at the same time, I was just looking at his hands,” he said.
The deputy quickly grabbed one of Smith’s hands and managed to retrieve the truck keys.
Moments later, Smith was in handcuffs.
It remains unclear whether or not the suspect knew that the children were inside the truck when he got in.
Pazmino Alvarez moved to Florida from Ecuador in 2012, became a citizen and fulfilled a dream to one day become a law enforcement officer.
“I used to be an aquatics director for the YMCA. I used to do ropes course and team building, so I was surrounded by kids,” he said.
That experience shaped how he handled Monday’s call. The deputy was just as relieved as the children’s father.
“He just said to me, ‘I’m so glad you were there,’ and I looked back and say, ‘Wow, I’m glad I was there, too,'” said Pazmino Alvarez, “and we are both so lucky that this did not go any other way.”
Smith was charged with two counts of felony kidnapping and one count of grand theft of a motor vehicle. As of Sunday night, he remains in jail.
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