Sometimes a scary story has a happy ending. From Fairfax County, Virginia:

A surveillance video released by police shows the moment a toddler was allegedly abducted at Fair Oaks Shopping Center.

Fairfax County Police say the girl wandered away from an indoor play area just before 11:45 a.m. on July 18, when she was picked up by a man identified as 26-year-old Andres Caceres Jaldin.

The child’s parents found Jaldin on the second level of the mall and intervened, safely recovering their daughter.

Here’s the video:

Good thing they spotted her before Jaldin could escape. Otherwise the story might have turned out something like this:

A Somali immigrant living in the United States has been sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for raping a 12-year-old girl in Minneapolis last year.

The girl was abducted out of her backyard, struck on the head, and sexually assaulted.

Qalinle Ibrahim Dirie, 42, was born in Somalia during the country’s civil war and grew up in Kenyan refugee camps. In 2006, Dirie immigrated to the United States…

Sounds like the Ilhan Omar story. It is unclear whether Dirie is in the country legally.

His fellow Somalis have his back:

[T]he Al-Ihsan Islamic Center in St. Paul submitted a “Community Support Letter for Qalinle Dirie” to the judge.

“We, the undersigned members of the Somali community, write this letter to express our strong and heartfelt support for Qalinle Dirie, a member of our community,” says the letter.

This says more about the community than it does about Dirie, whose character is already known.

But maybe the letter worked. The 12-year sentence was the lightest recommended under Minnesota guidelines.

Dirie will likely be released on probation in 2033, despite refusing to own up to his crime. By then Minneapolis may be majority Somali, as everyone else gets their children out of there.

On tips from abcanc and WDS 2.0.