SWEETWATER, FLA. (WSVN) - Officers arrested two men and a woman after what police described as an abduction that began in West Miami-Dade and came to an end following a pit stop at a McDonald’s where an employee called 911.
According to Miami-Dade Police, the 33-year-old victim was called to meet a female friend in a parking lot near 93rd Avenue and Flagler Street, at around 6 p.m., Thursday.
Detectives said the victim didn’t think anything of the meeting place or the U-Haul that the woman used to arrive at the location until he noticed that she wasn’t alone.
“He observed there was an additional Hispanic male with her. The Hispanic male then strikes the [victim], hits him, and they force him into the U-Haul truck,” said MDPD Detective Alvaro Zabaleta
Police said the subjects left the parking lot and headed to a nearby home, but no one was there.
At some point, investigators said, the suspects got hungry and decided to stop at the McDonald’s located on 105th Avenue and Flagler Street in Sweetwater.
“Everyone gets off the truck to enter the fast food establishment to order food, and that’s when the victim seizes the opportunity to alert an employee and advises them that he has been abducted,” said Zabaleta.
Speaking with 7News in Spanish, that employee, Merly Oliva, said the victim was scared and looked panicked. He began giving her a description of the U-Haul truck and his alleged captors. Oliva said at that point, the woman he was with grabbed the victim and rushed him out of the restaurant.
According to police, after the McDonald’s employee dialed 911, one of the subjects bit the victim and forcefully took his phone before they fled the scene in the U-Haul truck.
Sweetwater Police located and stopped the truck in the area of Southwest 97th Avenue and Sixth Street, where they arrested the individuals.
“City of Sweetwater’s swift action was able to locate and apprehend these individuals,” said Zabaleta.
When officers searched the U-Haul truck, they found the third subject inside. It remains unclear what his connection to the abduction is, but police said he was also arrested because he had narcotics on him.
Detectives said they are conducting interviews as they attempt to determine why the victim was targeted in the first place.
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