Less than 24 hours after a stranger tried to lure a 9-year-old Tucson girl from her bedroom, police have a suspect under arrest.
On Tuesday, police Chief Chris Magnus said it was "exceptional work" by the personnel from three department bureau's that lead to the quick arrest.
Alonso Rodriquez, 29, was booked into the Pima County Jail early today on suspicion of attempted kidnapping and second-degree burglary in connection with the episode around 6:30 a.m. Sunday at a midtown apartment.
A TPD patrol officer located the suspect shortly after 2 a.m. at a parking lot near E. Presidio Road and North Alvernon Way and took him into custody without incident, a new release said.
Police said the man went to an apartment building in the 2400 block of North Dodge Boulevard and opened the window to the bedroom where the girl slept, then tried to convince the child to leave with him. Magnus said in his Facebook memo that the suspect grabbed the girl by her arm and tried to get her to go with him.
A relative who heard a commotion checked the girl's room and screamed when she saw the man, alerting other family members, and the stranger ran away. Family members told police the man was talking to the girl through a window he had opened.
The suspect was identified and apprehended relatively quickly thanks to a team effort between detectives, patrol officers, and communications and crime lab personnel, the news release said.
Magnus said in his Facebook posting that a crime scene unit processed the scene and recovered evidence, including fingerprints. While officers canvassed the neighborhood for information, crime lab personnel were able to process the evidence quickly and positively identified a suspect using the fingerprint evidence from a statewide database less than 10 hours after the incident.
Once officers had the name of a suspect, they quickly began searching for him, Magnus said in his memo. The department sent out "stop and arrest" bulletin citywide with the suspect's information, Magnus said.
Magnus said while officers searched for the suspect, crime lab DNA personnel processed evidence from the scene and late Sunday it was determined the DNA evidence matched the suspect identified by the fingerprint evidence. The instrument used to perform the DNA analysis was recently acquired by the department through a grant from the National Institute of Justice, Magnus wrote.
Early Monday, an officer spotted the suspect and arrested him without evidence, Magnus said.
