The girl reportedly told deputies a YouTube challenge gave her the idea to prank 911, thinking it "would be funny."
PORT ORANGE, Fla. — An 11-year-old girl faces criminal charges after she reportedly texted 911 to report her friend was kidnapped — something that turned out to be fake, according to deputies.
This all happened Wednesday morning in Port Orange, an area south of Daytona Beach, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said in a release.
The 11-year-old, whom 10 Tampa Bay is not naming due to her age, texted 911 around 9:45 a.m. to report that her 14-year-old friend had been abducted and that she was following them in a blue Jeep.
Over the next hour and a half, the 11-year-old texted dispatchers updates that included a description of the alleged kidnapper and the fact the man had a gun. The girl also said the kidnapper was driving a white van on southbound Interstate 95 in Oak Hill.
As the girl was texting 911, authorities from multiple agencies in the area responded to the reported kidnapping and searched for the van. But they didn't find anything, the release said.
Eventually, during their investigation, deputies said they were directed to a home on Poppy Lane in Port Orange.
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Shortly before 10:30 a.m., deputies said they arrived at the home and spoke with the girl's father, who said she was inside with the family.
When the girl went out to meet deputies, she was holding her cell phone and it was ringing, the agency said. At the other end of the line — Volusia Sheriff's Dispatch.
Deputies said they confirmed they were at the home and would take it from there.
Body camera video released by the sheriff's office shows a few moments after the 11-year-old's arrest.
A group of deputies appears to surround the handcuffed girl, whose face is blurred in the video.
"Stay calm," one of the deputies said on camera. "You can talk to your parents, we can open the window and let you talk to them. Nothing's going to happen to you. Do you understand that?"
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"I'm telling you this right now," another deputy chimed in. "You're going to take this as a lesson at 11 years old that if you do something stupid in the future, you're going to enjoy those cuffs."
"I'm not going to do this again," the girl replied.
"You know, [redacted], this is going to be an opportunity for you to turn this into a learning experience," the first deputy continued. "This is not something you're going to carry with you for the rest of your life, OK?"
The girl reportedly told deputies a YouTube challenge gave her the idea to prank 911, thinking it "would be funny."
However, Sheriff Mike Chitwood said he wasn't amused. "This kind of prank activity is dangerous – we’re going to investigate every incident but today it wasted valuable resources that might have helped someone else who legitimately needed our help," he said in a statement.
The girl was 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. She was eventually taken to the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center.
