Flock cameras help Lynn police quickly locate stolen car with 6-year-old girl inside
A Lynn mother is praising the work of law enforcement for safely finding her 6-year-old daughter who was in the back of a car when it was stolen.
"Thank God she's with me. I feel good. I feel at ease because now she's with me, safe and sound," said Rosa Nolasco, speaking in Spanish to WBZ-TV.
"Stop screaming - your daughter is right here"
It was around 4:30 p.m. on Monday when Nolasco says her daughter, Helen, was in the back of their Toyota Corolla in their Lynn neighborhood. Nolasco said she briefly crossed the street and then realized that the car was gone.
"It was like I crossed the street, I took out the paper that I needed to take out, and I turned around and the car was not there," Nolasco said.
Nolasco said she began to panic. She then realized her cellphone was still in the car and she called it. She described an eerie conversation with the man driving her car.
"'No, don't worry, and stop screaming - your daughter is right here. She's going to get scared,'" Nolasco says the man told her. "He said he would drop the little girl off at the police station at eight o'clock that night. That just made me even more distressed."
Flock cameras lead to arrest
Nolasco called police and a hunt for the vehicle quickly began. Lynn police say the department utilized its Flock cameras to trace the car's license plate, indicating that the car had traveled out of Lynn and in the direction of Saugus.
"This information allowed officers to quickly identify the vehicle's direction of travel and communicate that information to surrounding police departments and the Massachusetts State Police," the department wrote in a news release.
Flock cameras are a controversial surveillance technology that track cars and are an automated license plate reader. Some departments have stopped using the cameras, while others have defended them.
Lynn police say they also made efforts to trace Nolasco's phone and initiate an Amber Alert.
The search for the car ended on Revere Beach Parkway in Everett. Police surrounded the white car with the 6-year-old child inside. The child was brought to Mass General Hospital as a precaution where she was reunited with her mother.
"Thank God they found the girl and now she is healthy, safe. I thank God very much," Rosa said.
Marvin Kentrez Pryien arraigned
The driver, identified by Everett Police as Marvin Kentrez Pryien, 26, of Malden, was taken into custody and arraigned in Lynn District Court on Tuesday on charges of kidnapping, shoplifting, reckless endangerment of a child, and receiving a stolen motor vehicle. The court issued a not guilty plea on his behalf.
According to court records, Pryien was on probation at the time of the incident and cut off his GPS ankle bracelet. He also has an open case out of Somerville.
Nolasco told WBZ she is grateful to local police.
"Thank and God bless you," she said.
