DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. – A 15-year-old girl was walking her sisters home from school in Dearborn Heights when a man approached her and touched her inappropriately.
Police said the man tried to grab the teen near Telegraph Road and Annapolis Street, but she said she did exactly what her father had told her to do. She said she was taught not to talk to strangers, and that if someone tried to grab her, she should scream as long as she could, and fight.
"I probably would have been gone if I didn't know what to do," the teen said.
She was walking her two young sisters home from school when the man grabbed her. She said all she could think of was protecting her sisters.
"I would much rather it be me than anybody, especially them," she said. "I just wanted to get as far back as I could so that he couldn't run and grab my little sisters, because I can't run. I wouldn't be able to catch up to him to get my little sisters back. That was my main goal, was to just get away."
The attempted abduction happened around 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
"He asked what the time was, and we've grown up to know you don't talk to strangers, so we just walked past," the teen said.
Suddenly, the man grabbed her from behind.
"For a split second, I thought everything was over, that they were going to be gone and I was going to be gone," she said. "But my instinct just kicked in -- you know, scream something -- and I just kept screaming, 'This man's touching me. He's trying to get me. I need to get away.'"
She said she wasn't going anywhere without a fight.
"The only thing I could do was move my arms back to release as much as I could to get away," she said.
She credits her dad for teaching her what to do in that situation. She hopes other parents do the same.
"This does happen a lot more than people think, and I need people to know that this can happen to your kids, anybody's kids," she said.
The family said the girls won't be walking to school again. They plan to coordinate rides.
Police said they arrested a man within 18 hours of the incident after the teen gave a detailed description of her attacker. They also checked surveillance video.
He is expected to be arraigned over the weekend.