On the Fourth of July, North Carolina authorities conducted a routine traffic check and found a girl passenger, age 16, who had been reported missing by Florida police just a few hours earlier.
Alarming Advice for Parents
According to a news statement from the Nash County sheriff's office, as reported by Fox News, a white Audi with Florida license plates was stopped on Interstate 95 just after midnight for a traffic violation.
After asking the 40-year-old driver, Alejandro Hernandez Vazquez, some standard inquiries, deputies derived probable cause to suspect criminal behavior, as stated in the news release.
When deputies searched Vazquez's car with his permission, they found a missing teenage girl who had been reported to the Coral Springs Police Department only five hours before the traffic encounter.
Authorities intervened and took the kid to the Wake County Juvenile Detention Center, where she waited until her family came to pick her up. The girl had apparently met Vazquez online.
The sheriff's office said the victim's family did not know the suspect and did not grant him permission to take the victim over state boundaries.
"Monitor your kids' social media because a lot of this stuff starts with people preying on children," Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone stated via WRAL's report.
"If you're not monitoring what your child is doing on the internet, then there's the possibility that people are taking advantage of them. This older guy here was taking advantage of the 16-year-old. He was carrying her up North, and I'm sure it was not in the best interest of that girl or for society."
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Significance of Traffic Inspections
Tom Weitzel, a former police chief in the Illinois town of Riverside, told Fox News that traffic stops often lead to the arrest of criminals.
Nevertheless, there is an effort in places like Chicago to reduce the number of times police pull drivers over. The idea's proponents contend that police officers' unconscious prejudice might influence the way they handle traffic stops, leading to excessive force.
Police make arrests at traffic stops most of the time. If either the driver or the passenger has an outstanding warrant, they will likely be arrested. Some people have arrest warrants for very serious crimes.
Weitzel argues that if police were not allowed to do random traffic stops, they would not have been able to catch those fugitives until much later. During traffic stops, he added that the recovery of handguns has increased exponentially in the last two or three years.
Vazquez has been arrested and lodged in the Nash County Detention Center on a $505,000 bail.
When police searched the suspect's car, they discovered THC pens, which led to accusations of criminal possession of synthetic cannabinoids, possession of marijuana paraphernalia, and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile.
Weitzel said the incident would not have taken place if the police officer had not made a traffic stop.
