"Please help me": Girl, 11, calls 911 from closet during burglary
ORLANDO, Fla. -- In recently-released 911 audio, an 11-year-old Florida girl is heard whispering to a dispatcher as she hides in a closet at her home during a burglary.
The station reports Ashley Bermudez had been left alone at her Orlando home Tuesday afternoon while her mother went to the store. When the girl saw a purple Kia she didn’t recognize pull into her driveway, she went to her room upstairs, where she hid in a closet.
The girl’s mother told the station she had only been gone for about six minutes when the burglary happened. The girl said she heard loud knocking, and then glass breaking. She called 911.
Audio of the call was released Wednesday and obtained by CBS affiliate WKMG.
“Please help me, come, hurry please?” the girl is heard telling a dispatcher.
The dispatcher replies: “OK, we are coming, give me one minute, OK?”
About three minutes into the ten-minute call, burglars kick down the door and enter the bedroom where the girl was hiding.
“Oh no, please,” she’s heard saying to the burglars. “Please, I won’t say anything. I promise you.”
The men ran out of the house after seeing the girl, Orange County Sheriff’s Office officials told the station.
The girl’s description of the suspects aided the investigation, officials say.
Bermudez asks the dispatcher whether her parents will be arrested for leaving her home alone.
“I have a question for you,” the girl said. “Will my parents get in trouble?”
The operator replies: “You’re 11 years old, but you’re doing a great job, OK?”
Deputies tell the station they’ve since arrested 18-year-old Ramon Franklin, and two teen boys, 16 and 14. A responding deputy reportedly saw the suspects fleeing in a stolen vehicle. They were arrested hours later when they crashed the car into a flatbed truck.
“I felt like going to tears, but I said I have to relax because I know that I’m going to be safe and I know that they’re gonna protect me,” Bermudez later told reporters.
Deputies said the suspects stole all of the family’s Christmas presents, including electronics, jewelry, cash and clothing worth $13,000. All three are expected to face burglary and theft charges.
