Neighbor chases kidnapper, saves girl

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The 6-year-old girl was taken by a stranger from a playground right outside her South Valley home.

The girl lives at the Vista Del Sol mobile home park near Blake and Unser SW.

Police say she was on the playground at around 4 p.m. Monday when a man in a green van pulled up.

An alert neighbor says the man tried to coax the little girl into his van.

“The child was being resistant to his enticement, and that is what caused him to get out of the car and actually push her into the van,” said Officer Robert Gibbs with the Albuquerque Police Department.

The neighbor then jumped into his own car and chased after Phil Garcia, the suspected kidnapper, while calling 911.

Officers say Garcia realized he was being followed and tried to drive onto the mesa to lose the neighbor.  Instead he ended up crashing about a mile and a half from the kidnapping scene.

Garcia ran.

The neighbor jumped out of his car and pulled the little girl from the van.

Police showed up seconds later and caught Garcia on the mesa.

Officers say the neighbor is a hero and without him this story could have ended horribly.

“He probably would not have attempted or tried to get away in the desert, probably would have tried to go down a normal road, taken her somewhere, probably sexually assaulted her and could have hurt or actually killed her,” said Gibbs.

We've learned the van belongs to Garcia's sister.

A source tells us Garcia removed the back seats after borrowing the van.

The little girl is OK, but police say the mother is very shaken up.

As for the hero, he told police he acted on instinct.

News 13 checked Garcia’s criminal history online: he has two DWI convictions but no sex crimes on his record.

He now faces kidnapping charges.

He lives two miles away from the girl.