A 13-year-old Michigan boy who used a slingshot to save his eight-year-old sister from an attempted kidnapping said he was “freaking out” and simply reached for something that could stop the attack.
“So I grab my slingshot and open the window and I grab two things — a marble and a gravel rock or something,” Owen Burns told WWTV/WWUP-TV in Cadillac, Michigan.
Police said Owen struck the 17-year-old assailant in the head and chest, and his sister was able to get away.
Photo: AP
“I was just lucky. He’s just a big target because he’s not like one Pepsi can,” Owen said.
The attempted kidnapping occurred on May 10 outside the family’s home in Alpena Township. Owen’s sister was outside looking for mushrooms.
“I say: ‘OK, be careful’... and then, boom, something happens,” he said.
Owen heard a scream while playing video games, but figured his sister was just “messing around” with friends. A second scream alarmed him.
“So I looked out the window and saw her being abducted by a person and I’m like freaking out,” Owen said.
That is when he grabbed his slingshot.
Police caught the suspect and said he had visible wounds. The teen has been charged with attempted kidnapping and other crimes.
Michigan State Police First Lieutenant John Grimshaw said that Owen’s actions were “extraordinary.”
He said the boy saved his sister’s life or at least prevented “something seriously bad happening to her.”
Owen said he had to act.
“If I wasn’t out there and I didn’t hear her scream, then she was gone,” he said.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Sri Lanka’s fragile economic recovery could be hampered by threatened trade union strikes over reduced benefits for government employees in this year’s budget, the IMF said yesterday. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s maiden budget raised public sector salaries, but also made deep cuts to longstanding perks in a continuing effort to repair the island nation’s tattered finances. Sri Lanka’s main doctors’ union is considering a strike from today to protest against cuts to their allowances, while teachers are also considering stoppages. IMF senior mission chief for Sri Lanka Peter Breuer said the budget was the “last big push” for the country’s austerity
RSS