On an ordinary afternoon, Owen Burns was walking home from school when he heard his sister yelling. He didn’t like the disturbance her shouts made, and he didn’t see anything sinister in her cry for help.
He was surprised when he turned to look out his window, but he quickly overcame that to make a choice that would save his life.
Owen Burns was about to start playing “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” his preferred game on his PlayStation 3, when he heard his sister screaming in the backyard. The thirteen-year-old became agitated because she felt foolish.
The adolescent later saw a stranger attempting to drag his sister, who was eight years old, to the woods that bordered their home while he was in his bedroom. The terrified teenager grabbed his slingshot and gathered any items he could use as ammunition, including a marble and a rock, that were close by. He fired a direct shot between the kidnapper’s eyes.
He struck him in the chest the second time. He was cursing. “He was swearing,” Owen said to the media.
The gathering took held in the open at the Burns’ home in Alpena Township, Michigan. Kidnappings are not prevalent in the area, according to their mother Maggie Burns.
After the event, his 8-year-old sister was uninjured but undoubtedly terrified. The 17-year-old kidnapper’s identity was kept a secret by the Michigan State Police, but they did say that he would be charged as an adult.
At a news conference, Lt. John Grimshaw praised Owen for his “extraordinary” actions, saying that he “really is the one that… I believe saved his sister’s either life or from something seriously bad happening to her.” The acts of this young youngster were nothing short of heroic!
He went on to say that the young man deserved praise for his efforts. There was nothing exceptional about the adolescent’s usage of a normal slingshot. Because it was on sale, his mother paid $3 for it. The teen, who said it helped him improve his aim, would occasionally go outside to his yard and practice shooting at old orange juice cans.
The child claimed he had just one idea when he first saw a stranger trying to capture his sister: if the stranger was successful, he would probably either kill his sister or use her as a sex slave.
In an attempt to drag her into the woods, the captor “came from behind her, grabbed her like you see in the movies — hand over the mouth, arm around the waist.”
Owen then took out his slingshot and began shooting at him. She ran into the home crying and told her brother that she had almost been killed when the abductor released go of her.
Indignant, Owen stormed outside while berating the kidnapper. He attempted to hit him with a baseball but failed. The slingshot’s rubber then started to fracture, making his third attempt useless. Then he attempted to strike him with it once again.
The siblings then called their mother, who was on her way home from work but had stopped to assist at a relative’s home. She heard her upset and incomprehensible children on the phone and hurried home to call the police. She recognized the word “kidnapper.”
“I was in shock for a few days,” Maggie admitted.
The 17-year-old kidnapper was found hiding at a nearby gas station. He was later charged with attempted kidnapping, attempted criminal assault, and misdemeanor assault and battery in Alpena County District Court.
According to a news release from the police, “he had obvious signs of an injury consistent with those that would have been sustained from the slingshot strikes to his head and chest.”
Maggie doubted his son’s assertion that he struck the kidnapper precisely in the face and chest from 200 feet away. The information was supported by the police, who claimed that as they chatted with the suspect, the goose egg caused by the marble on his forehead continued to grow.
You claimed I always tell lies. Declared Owen to his mother.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” she said in response. “Until there was confirmation, it just didn’t sound real. It sounds like something from a motion picture.
The adolescent responded, “Mom, things in movies can and do happen in real life.” This young man is definitely a hero!
This wonderful story demonstrates the courageous deeds of a big brother in protecting his little sister. Tell your loved ones about this story to inspire them.