Archive: Opinions

Tuesday morning Victor Perez, 29, a Fresno, CA grape picker, saw a truck go by his house that he recognized from an amber alert he had seen the night before.  A young girl had been abducted from her front yard Monday night.  Perez got into his truck and followed the black and white vehicle, cut it off a few times so he could talk to the driver.  The second time this happened he saw the girl, so he persisted until the driver, 24 year old Gregorio Gonzalez pushed the girl out of his truck and took off.  Perez stayed with the girl, reassuring her as they waited for police to arrive.

The mainstream news media is rightly hailing Perez as a hero for saving the girl, who told police she had been threatened and sexually assaulted.  Any story like this that doesn't end with a corpse is a great story.  But this one is even better because of Perez's selfless act, putting himself at risk to save a little girl that he didn't even know, and actually saving the girl.

Most of us are programmed to call 911 and let the police do their job.  Perez said that he thought the truck would get away in the time it would take for police to get to the scene, so he took off after it, confronting the driver multiple times, telling him, 'That is not your little girl.'

The incident could have gone any number of ways.  But Perez persisted, especially when he saw the girl.  But he is not allowing his fifteen minutes of fame to go to his head.

"I just felt like I was doing my part," he told reporters.  "I just felt like everybody should step up in their own communities and when something like this happens, come together and try to do your part to help out."

It is interesting that where some people will act, others will stand by.  When Holocaust survivor Fred Voss speaks to local audiences he speaks of huge crowds of Germans who stood by and watched as temples were burned and Jews were killed.  Yet he also speaks of brave Christians who hid Jews and saved their lives, risking their own lives in doing so.

The passengers on the fourth 9/11 plane also come to mind.  Although it was probably pretty clear to them that they weren't going to survive that flight, they did what they had to do to keep it from reaching the White House.  If you think 9/11 was bad, imagine what it would have been like if the White House had been destroyed, possibly taking our head of state with it.  Those people saved the country a ton of grief, and their example started the healing and resulting calls to action.

Perez says he is not a hero, but he is because he found it within himself to do something when many others would have stood by and watched.  Some would have thought to themselves, 'that looks like the amber alert truck, but maybe it isn't' and done nothing.  Others might have called 911 and gone back to their lives where it is safe.  He put himself on the line to save a little girl.

You can't help but wonder what you would do in the same circumstances.  What would you do?

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