Police arrest teens who staged potentially deadly kidnapping hoax for YouTube video

‘Good armed citizens might have been justified in using force,’ sheriff says

Two teenagers have been charged with reckless conduct and raising a false public alarm after reportedly staging an elaborate kidnapping prank for YouTube. (Getty Images )

Two teenagers face multiple charges after allegedly staging a kidnapping prank for a YouTube video last week in the parking lot of a Georgia mall.

The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office said it received multiple calls on 3 July from outside The Collection Forsyth shopping centre about a woman whose body was tied up and face covered by a pillowcase as she screamed inside an SUV.

“He is going to kill me!” the woman said while screaming, witnesses told police.

A total of eight deputies rushed to the mall, located 35 miles north of Atlanta, while travelling “in emergency modes with lights and siren trying to render help to this alleged victim,” police said, adding: “Such driving is not without risk to the public and deputies.”

The teenagers, 19-year-old Christopher Kratzer and 17-year-old Ava Coleman, were arrested and charged with reckless conduct and raising a false public alarm. Mr Kratzer was held without bond for violating the terms of his probation from a 2018 incident in which he threw blocks of wood at passing cars from the window of his vehicle, police said.

Ms Coleman was released shortly after on bond. The vehicle reportedly belonged to her father, who told deputies he let her use the car that day for the prank.

Doug Rainwater, a spokesperson for the Forsyth County Sherriff’s Office, told the Forsyth County News that deputies ordered the suspects out of the vehicle at gunpoint.

"So many things could have gone wrong," he said. "We truly thought that there was a kidnapping in process."

Mr Rainwater described the events as “unacceptable,” adding: “For 20 straight minutes, we had deputies racing across Forsyth County to help this girl, thinking that this was a true abduction.”

The sheriff’s office posted about the incident on Facebook, with one sheriff saying: “If you want to create a social media following, I would strongly dissuade you from this stupidity, good armed citizens might have been justified in using force to stop what they legitimately believed was a kidnapping.”

“Committing a criminal act for social media likes will get you arrested in Forsyth County, that's not the kind of attention most people want to have,” the sheriff’s office said.