It was a typical night at the impromptu skate park. Four Canadian teens were having a good time practicing in the underground parking garage. But it was getting late, and the boys had to head home soon. But then, they noticed something suspicious happening on the streets of Calgary that stopped them in their tracks.
A well-dressed man and an upset fifteen-year-old girl were walking across the parking garage. But the man was forcefully carrying the irate teenager through the underground lot. But that wasn’t the behavior that alerted the teens. It was something else about the girl that quickly made them very suspicious.
One of the skateboarders, Carsyn Wright, said, “She was screaming and yelling. She just wanted to be out of there. She was all scuffed up and dirty.” That was enough to make the boys suspicious. So, the four teens decided to walk up to the man and demand an explanation. What was up with this dude?
The man told the concerned teens that he was the girl’s dad. The boys assumed he had probably found her doing something illegal like underage drinking. The young woman didn’t scream for help or contradict the older man, so they backed off. But something wasn’t quite right with this situation.
It was getting late in Calgary, and the boys needed to make their way home. So, they packed up their skateboards and other items and headed home. Not once did they doubt the man’s explanation, especially since the girl didn’t suggest he was lying. But the boys couldn’t shake off that eerie feeling that something was wrong.
The boys felt uneasy as they walked out of the underground parking lot. How could they be 100% certain that the man was telling the truth? The girl was dirty and resistant. What had they been doing in the parking lot this late at night? Maybe they were just looking for their car. The boys weren’t quite so sure anymore.
The teens hadn’t bought the man’s story, at least, not entirely. But Wright said, “You don’t want to really think of the worst in somebody like that. You don’t want that situation to be real, so you just brush it off and hope for the best.” But their consciences were weighing on them.
They decided to head back to make sure everything was okay. They rushed into the Calgary underground parking lot. Working together, they figured out where the man and teenage girl had gone. But when they finally tracked them down, they were overwhelmed with disgust.
The four teens were frozen by the sight of what the man was doing to the teen girl. Arnaud Nimenya, one of the boys, said that he “didn’t know what to do.” But the teen boys snapped out of their shocked state and tried to separate them. And the man was extremely upset by their intrusion.
The man’s attempts had failed, so he tried leaving the parking garage. “He pushed me aggressively out of the way, kinda like just gives me the smile, like, ‘I can do this. You can’t do anything about it,’” claimed Nimenya, as he and his friends followed the man. And that’s when the man reacted!
A chase ensued, and the boys were on the man’s heels. But one of the teens stuck around to look after the inebriated girl. The other three boys trailed the man as he made his way back into the streets of Calgary. When the man realized he was being followed, he decided to use the boys’ skateboards to fight them off.
Fortunately, the cops arrived and took him into custody before he could harm the teenage boys. Then, the three went back to check on the girl and their friend. Once they realized she was okay, the boys went home. They had no idea how grateful the city would be to them for their heroic deeds.
Police Chief Constable Roger Chaffin tried calling the boys. He wanted to thank them for their heroism, but the boys thought they were in trouble for getting into a scuffle with the man. Eventually, the police chief was able to explain his intentions, and the boys were surprised and touched by the officer’s kind gesture.
The four boys were invited to the Chief’s Award Gala to receive recognition for their service to the city of Calgary, and for saving the young girl’s life. The teens humbly claimed that they did what they hoped anyone would have done in their place. And going forward, they intend to follow their gut instincts.