Salt Lake City police officer helps locate kidnapped toddler
January 2nd, 2010 @ 9:15pm
By Sam Penrod

WEST VALLEY CITY -- A Salt Lake City police officer helped track down a 2-year-old West Valley City girl whose kidnapping prompted an Amber Alert Saturday.

The alert paid off within an hour, when the suspect's car was located several miles away in Salt Lake City and the girl was taken into protective custody.

Police said the girl was in good condition, thanks, in part, to the police officer who heard the Amber Alert, saw the car and rescued her. Police were able to reunite the girl with her mother, who feared she would never see her daughter again.

The girl's father, 24-year-old Gabriel Velazquez, broke into her house just before 9:30 a.m. and took her while the family was sleeping.

"He made entry through a sliding glass door on the side of the home, went downstairs where the little girl and mother were sleeping," said Lt. Bill Merritt with the West Valley City Police Department. "He actually woke up the mother as he picked up the girl and told her 'we're leaving, we're outta here.'"

The father had actually been deported to Mexico because of his criminal history, but police said they believed he had re-entered the country illegally within the past two weeks.

Police said Velazquez sent text messages to the mother, threatening to take the girl back to Mexico -- prompting police to issue the statewide Amber Alert.

"We were given information he was going back to Mexico," said Sgt. Steve Burke with the West Valley City Police Department. "Where he entered the home the way that he did, the information that we had that he was going back to Mexico, we obviously feared that the child may get back to Mexico and not make it back to the United States where her mother is."

Just after noon, a Salt Lake City police officer recognized the car from the Amber Alert and found Velazquez with the child at 1056 S. Jefferson Street.

The little girl was comforted by an officer in a patrol car for several minutes until West Valley officers were able to bring her mother to the scene.

Police said they did not believe the child was physically harmed by the father, who was arrested and taken to the Salt Lake County jail. In addition to kidnapping and burglary charges from the abduction, he faces additional charges of being back in the United States illegally.

Police said he had a history of domestic violence and child abuse.

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