Police Officer Catches Suspected Kidnapper After Chance Encounter at Traffic Stop
A routine traffic stop conducted by a South Carolina police officer soon became a rescue from an alleged kidnapping.
On May 28, an officer from the North Myrtle Beach Police Department appeared to save a woman who was allegedly being forced to drive a white Jeep by a male passenger—who police identified as 29-year-old Collins Xavier Manning Bates—after he had allegedly just shot someone.
The police officer, listed as Officer Wallace, initially pulled over the vehicle after she saw it skip a red light at an intersection. When Wallace approached the vehicle, which had a woman behind the wheel and Bates in the passenger's seat, she "noticed the driver appeared distressed," the police department's public information officer told E! News in a statement June 15.
"While the male passenger wasn't looking at the driver, the female silently mouthed 'Help Me' repeatedly," police said. "Officer Wallace observed the driver's message and removed the passenger from the vehicle, placing him in the back seat of her patrol car."
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The driver "frantically advised" Wallace that Bates had just shot someone, police said. Moments later, Wallace received a radio dispatch notifying police to be on the lookout for a vehicle that was "just involved in a shooting in the county."
"Due to Officer Wallace proactively patrolling the streets of North Myrtle Beach, even to the last 30 minutes of her shift," police told E! News, "a suspect in a shooting was arrested and an unlawfully carried pistol was recovered underneath the suspect's seat."
Bates was detained on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, unlawful possession of a weapon, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, according to Horry County records obtained by People.
E! News reached out to the Myrtle Beach Police Department to obtain contact information for Bates' lawyer, if he has acquired one, for comment but hasn't heard back.
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