11-Year-Old Girl Arrested After Prank-Texting 911 to Report Friend’s Kidnapping

A young girl in Florida was arrested and charged with a felony after being inspired by an online challenge to fake a report that her friend had been kidnapped, local authorities said. The 11-year-old, a girl named Ava, thought it “would be funny” to text a 911 dispatcher on Wednesday morning to say her 14-year-old friend had been abducted, according to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office. She told the dispatcher she was following the supposed kidnapper’s blue Jeep. “For the next hour and a half, the girl texted updates including a description of the male suspect and that he had a gun,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement. After launching a large search, deputies eventually tracked Ava’s cell phone to her home, where her father told investigators that the girl was inside the house. She reportedly told deputies that she had gotten the idea for the stunt from YouTube. Body camera footage of the scene shared by the sheriff’s office show the girl, face blurred, with her hands apparently cuffed behind her back as an officer instructs her to use this as “a learning experience.” She has been charged with making a false police report concerning the use of a firearm in a violent manner, a felony, and misuse of 911, a misdemeanor.