philip garcia mugshot
Philip GarciaIt takes a village to keep a child safe, or at least some very observant neighbors! A 6-year-old girl is alive today because a neighbor in her New Mexico trailer park had his eyes open and his wits about him ... not to mention a lead foot.

The girl was on a playground right outside of her home when a strange man (29-year-old Philip Garcia) grabbed her and threw her in the back of his van. Luckily, 24-year-old Antonio Diaz Chacon saw the abduction happen. Luckier still, he didn't waste a second of time before jumping into action.

Chacon, a dad with two small daughters, immediately leaped into his own pickup truck and took off after the kidnapper. Then, in a high-speed chase straight out of Hollywood, Chacon trailed Garcia through the neighborhood streets until Garcia crashed his van into a telephone pole and ran away on foot!

Chacon swiftly got the girl out of the van and took her back to the trailer park, where her family, already sick with worry, had called 911. Police caught up with Garcia later (dumbass went back to his smashed-up van!), and he's now being charged with kidnapping, child abuse, and tampering with evidence.

Woo-hoo! In typical good guy fashion, Chacon says he "didn't think twice" about rescuing the girl. He also says that as he drove after Garcia, he kept thinking about his own little girls and how he would want someone to do the same for them. Awww!

I love this story because it seems like too often, when we hear about horrible things happening to kids, we don't hear about any concerned adults trying to intervene. I think it's because we've all been so programmed to "stay out of other people's business" that we've become blind to what's going on all around us. Another prevailing attitude that's hurting us: It's not my problem.

Kudos to Chacon for making the life of a little girl both his business and his problem!

Do you wish there were more people like Antonio Diaz Chacon?

 

Image via Bernallilo County Metropolitan Detention Center