LOGANVILLE — The Gwinnett County Police Department put all hands on deck yesterday to quickly locate and capture a kidnapping suspect and rescuing the victim.
Shortly before 1 p.m., officers were dispatched to a panic alarm call at a home on Cooper Lakes Drive in Grayson. When officers arrived, they met with a mother who said that her 23-year-old daughter had just been abducted by the daughter’s boyfriend.
The mother said that her daughter was in the process of breaking up with her boyfriend throughout the day and they had been communicating via text.
According to police, while the daughter was upstairs in her bedroom, the mother said the boyfriend, 23-year-old Tangelo Tafari Roberts pushed through the front door and went upstairs to the girlfriend’s room and the couple began to argue.
According to the mother, Roberts pushed and grabbed her daughter forcing her outside of the home against her will. The couple left in Roberts’ blue Chevrolet Malibu.
In an effort to locate the victim as quickly as possible, a team of uniform officers, detectives, undercover officers, and communications officers at the county’s 911 Center worked to ping the victim’s and suspect’s phones. When the victim’s phone was pinging at an area off Ozora Road, the police department’s helicopter was used to search from the air.
Ultimately, surveillance was used to track down Roberts in the area of Preserve Park Drive in unincorporated Loganville. Officers conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle and took Roberts into custody. The victim was found unharmed and reunited with her family.
“The safety and security of the victim was our number one priority in this case. The team of officers and civilians assigned to this investigation were relentless in acting swiftly in an effort to locate the young woman,” said Gwinnett County Police spokeswoman Michele Pihera. “We are thankful that the victim was relatively unharmed during this ordeal.”
Tangelo Roberts was arrested and transported to the Gwinnett County Jail. He has been charged with one count of Kidnapping and has no bond.
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