In an unsettling incident, a man's quick thinking at a GameStop store led to the unraveling of his kidnapping, Memphis authorities report. The victim managed to convey his plight to a store employee through an unsent text message, signaling that he had been kidnapped. Memphis Police Department (MPD) identified the suspect as 27-year-old Derrickus Brown, who, along with an accomplice known only as "Murder," is accused of tying the victim up at gunpoint and driving him around through the night. MPD shared that Brown and his cohort forced the victim to withdraw $6,000 from a Regions Bank early Tuesday morning, as per FOX13 Memphis.
Subsequent attempts to commit fraud were thwarted as the victim's credit card was declined at Walmart while purchasing a TV, and again during an attempt to buy a watch from Mr. King Jewelers. Anees Zaheer, an employee at the jewelry store, sensed something amiss when one of the men, after being denied the transaction due to mismatched identification, discretely showed him a message on his iPhone. "He wrote don't do it. I said that they were probably friends or something because he came here with his friends before. So, I said his friend doesn't want him to do it," Zaheer recounted, as reported by WREG. After the pair left the store, Zaheer informed a security guard of the encounter.
Following the declined transactions, the victim was taken to GameStop, where an astute manager, having seen the unsent SOS text, alerted authorities. Having been found by police in his vehicle at a drive-thru ATM on Kirby Parkway, Brown was taken into custody. During the arrest, police discovered the alleged weapon used in the incident, a 9mm Ruger handgun, along with marijuana and Oxycodone pills. Brown faces severe charges, including aggravated kidnapping and unlawful possession of a firearm, Action News 5 reports.
An employee at GameStop on Winchester Road played a pivotal role when the kidnapped individual, whose name police have not released, reached out for help while appearing to be in distress. Observing the man's anxious demeanor, the employee was shown an unsent text that read he'd been kidnapped. Officers could quickly locate the suspect's car and rescue the victim thanks to this key intervention. Brown, alongside the charges tied to the kidnapping, has been hit with drug possession counts for marijuana and Oxycodone, FOX13 Memphis detailed.
