Video footage has been released from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport showing a woman allegedly trying to kidnap two young children from the terminal.
The woman, identified as Esther Daniels of Wichita, Kan., was arrested and sent to a local hospital after the June 24 incident.
The shocking video was made available by the Atlanta Police Department, showing the woman approaching the family as they were traveling to Walt Disney World in Orlando via Hartsfield-Jackson.
Atlanta’s airport is the airlines/hartsfield-jackson-atlanta-international-named-busiest-airport-in-world.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>busiest in the world, processing almost 108 million passengers a year, or 295,000 people a day – not to mention the thousands of airport workers, giving you an idea of the scope of humanity that passes through Hartsfield-Jackson on a daily basis.
The family, from Lithia Springs, Ga., was traveling through the airport’s atrium when Daniels tried to take a stroller carrying a baby girl. The mother fended off Daniels, who picked up the other child in her arms and tried to dart off.
Both parents, another traveler and a female traffic control officer quickly jumped into action and, after a brief chase, Daniels was subdued and arrested.
“She deserves all the praise,” Atlanta Police Department spokeswoman Tashena Brown said. “Especially for her to have been working, really, in a civilian capacity, for her to just to jump in right away with no hesitation is amazing.”
Brown said Daniels’ behavior “was very erratic, but we can’t really speak on what her mental state was, but we can agree that what she did was very erratic and odd, to say the least.”
Daniels was taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation.
