Kidnapping Victim Mouths ‘Help Me,’ Police Officer Leaps Into Action

A South Carolina police officer rescued a kidnapped woman and arrested a shooting suspect late last month when she stopped vehicle that ran a red light at a North Myrtle Beach intersection.

Officer Kayla Wallace was nearing the end of her patrol shift at about 5:30 a.m. on May 28 when she saw a white Jeep blow through the traffic light, the North Myrtle Beach Police Department said. She stopped the vehicle and immediately notice the woman driving the vehicle “appeared distressed.” When the male passenger wasn’t looking, the woman “silently mouthed ‘Help Me’ repeatedly.”

Wallace took the man out of the Jeep and put him into the back of her patrol car then went back to talk with the driver, “who frantically advised that the passenger had just shot someone.”

Moments later, a radio call from dispatchers alerted officers to “be on the look out” for the white Jeep, which had just been involved in a shooting. A handgun was found beneath the passenger’s seat.

The passenger, identified as 29-year-old Collins Bates, was charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, and other related charges, according to WMBF, which reported that Bates was accused of shooting someone outside the The Waterway House, a bar and restaurant on King’s Highway and forcing another victim — the woman driver of the Jeep — to drive away from the scene.

Bates is being held without bond.

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[Featured image: Kayla Wallace/North Myrtle Beach Police Department]