MAGNA, Utah — A lacking Magna 14-year-old woman was present in Texas, simply hours after an Amber Alert was issued Tuesday.
Unified Police Division mentioned Areli Arroyo Osuna was seen getting right into a black Nissan Altima pushed by 20-year-old David Lopez on Monday. Though she was first considered a runaway, officers believed Osuna was in “some severe hazard.”
The 2 have been initially thought of to be headed to Texas or Mexico.
On Tuesday afternoon, UPD mentioned Osuna “has been positioned and is in legislation enforcement custody in Texas,” and that the suspect was additionally in custody. The division didn’t say if the suspect was Lopez.
“[Osuna] has no relation to [Lopez],” mentioned Sgt. Melody Cutler with UPD. “They met on social media a couple of months in the past. He confirmed up on the town and he or she did go away with him. Primarily based on what we are able to discover on social media, it doesn’t appear to be he’s from Utah, however then once more we aren’t 100% positive about that.”
UPD will likely be sending detectives to Texas to proceed their investigation.
With Osuna and Lopez, who additionally goes by the identify Amilsar Vaquez, assembly on-line, Cutler shared a message concerning the risks of social media.
“We all know there are children on the market that consider their social media is their non-public enterprise, however it’s a harmful place,” Cutler mentioned. “In the end, it does not matter — any social media web site is a possible hazard for speaking with individuals we do not know. Whether or not or not it’s Fb, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok; all of these websites. These predators are excellent at grooming kids and getting them to do issues that they would not usually do.”
That is the second case inside the final two weeks the place a Utah teenager met up with a person they met on social media and located themselves trapped in a harmful state of affairs. Two weeks in the past, a thirteen-year-old from Roosevelt, Utah, was present in a semi-truck in Wyoming after two days of the FBI trying to find her whereabouts.
Cole Parkinson with Boys and Ladies Golf equipment of Utah County’s non-profit digital security group Web Constructive (previously generally known as ‘Utah NetSmartz’) mentioned web predators are professionals at preying on youngsters’ weak emotions.
“They’re nice at constructing a relationship over time in a really nameless approach and at a distance the place it doesn’t really feel threatening,” he mentioned.
He mentioned associates of those youngsters even have a duty to say one thing earlier than its too late.
On this case, the Magna teen’s associates instructed police that the pair could also be headed to Texas. That tip ended up being right.
Parkinson mentioned the saying ‘Snitches get stiches’ isn’t the most effective mantra to guard your buddy.
“I might love to vary that saying to ‘Snitches resolve issues’ as a result of we’ve an obligation to assist one another as dad and mom but additionally associates play a extremely large function on this,” he mentioned.
Former Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder mentioned dad and mom can monitor social media apps and set up Web packages all they’ll, however it’s communication that goes a good distance.
“We try to discern frequently who they’re in touch, the place they’re going, and from time-t0-time verifying that data to make sure that relationship is open and sincere and is two-way,” he mentioned.