A Florida woman who allegedly snatched a three-year-old boy from his fenced-in yard and ran off down the street last week told the cops she should be arrested because she “gave it back,” police bodycam footage shows.
“I gave it back! I gave it back!” Pamela Monsalve, 39, insisted in the moments before police put her in cuffs and booked her for kidnapping, the footage acquired by 7News reveals.
Neighbors sprang into action on Nov. 25 when they allegedly spotted Monsalve reach over the fence at his Hallandale Beach home, scoop the tot out of the yard, and run off with him.
Good Samaritans alerted the boy’s mother and chased Monsalve down the street, forcing her to release the toddler.
They then called the police, who found her nearby.
Bodycam video captured her rambling, incoherent explanation:
“He was outside, he was naked, he was, like, with his shirt, and his…everything was naked. And I asked for the people around to call police, and nobody would call police, and I told the little boy ‘Where’s your mom?’ and he said ‘no,’” Monsalve orated.
At one point an officer asks for the location of a “playground” she had mentioned.
“Outside the, the…outside the, um…hotel,” Monclave responded.
“I got the little boy, and everyone was like, don’t get the little boy, and I’m like, I gave it back to the mom,” she added. “I gave it back!”
Prosecutors aren’t buying her “no harm, no foul” defense. Monsalve is being held without bond and charged with confining a child under 13 without the consent of a parent, NBC 6 reported.
Local police praised the boy’s rescuers for thwarting a potential tragedy.
“This is an example of ‘know thy neighbor’ and those neighbors were able to help prevent this child from being permanently taken,” Hallandale Beach Police Capt. Megan Jones told NBC 6.