A police officer in Atlanta eventually spotted the vehicle. Once the driver spotted him in turn, he turned the lights on and sped toward the exit, colliding with four cars and the parked patrol car, nearly hitting the officer. The officers drew their weapons, instructed the driver to stop, but he ignored them and crashed into a fence.
At this point, Gladden escaped towards the Atlanta police officers, telling them the man jumped the fence and fled. Back at the Carrollton police station, Bryant “burst out of the interview room saying he had Gladden on FaceTime,” according to the police report.
“I saw police lights in the background; she was running and crying,” he told BuzzFeed News. “If I didn’t get the location, who knows what would have happened. Her doing it on her own — she was able to outsmart the bad guy.”
A spokesperson for the Carrollton police said in a statement that the public should “take lessons” from Gladden having her location feature turned on and texting her boyfriend. “If this victim did not have her phone and did not think quickly she may not have been as lucky.”
10 hours later, authorities arrested Timothy Wilson and charged him with kidnapping, hijacking a motor vehicle, aggravated assault, rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment, and aggravated assault against a police officer. He is in jail awaiting trial.
h/t BuzzFeed News