The Atlanta Police Department released new bodycam video that shows the moment cops broke into a trailer and arrested 42-year-old Lakesha Brown on Monday.
The footage shows one officer using a concrete cinder block to break a lock on a tow trailer parked at the Gateway South Apartment Complex on Sylvan Road.
Another officer used bolt cutters to open the door to the trailer. Cops swarmed inside the trailer and found Brown with 4-year-old Zola Cooper and 11-month-old Norah Cooper in the cramped and hot trailer.
In audio aired on WSB Radio, police told Brown they would shoot her if she didn’t hand over the children (Watch video).
According to arrest warrants, obtained by FOX 5 News, there was no air conditioning inside the dark trailer, but it did have an open ventilation window.
Police said the children were in good health and reunited with their mother.
Tips from the public led police to the tow trailer on Monday. Police also used Flock cameras and cell phone data to pinpoint Brown’s location.
Brown is charged with kidnapping. She is being held in the Fulton County Jail without bond.
Lt. Christapher Butler, with the Atlanta Police Department, said Lakesha Brown met and bonded with the girls’ mother, Elica Redding, in an online mom forum. Butler said Brown gained Redding’s trust over the course of a year, according to Channel 2 News.
Brown offered to come over and do Redding’s hair.
“She became a family friend from when I first met her on a mom group and she posted about giving free services for expecting moms. That’s how I met her, and after that we just started hanging,” said Redding, according to Atlanta News First.
Brown offered to babysit the 2 girls while Redding went out to eat on Saturday, August 15. Redding said Brown told her she would take the girls to Walmart and then to a candy store. But Brown stopped responding to calls and texts after 10 p.m.
“The mother thought she was leaving her children in the care of someone she could trust,” said Butler. “She’d gone out and there was some information that the suspect gave alluding to the fact that she was returning the children, which turned out not to be factual, so that’s what led to the delay of the 911 call.”
Lt. Butler said Brown has an outstanding warrant in Alabama for failing to appear in court following an arrest in 2021 for kidnapping.
The Jefferson County district attorney in Alabama filed a motion to revoke Brown’s bond after her arrest in Atlanta, WBRC reported.
In 2021, Brown was charged with first-degree kidnapping after she snatched 4-day-old Kamarion Taylor from his crib in his Fairfield, Alabama, home. Brown was considered to be a family friend, according to WVTM 13 News.
Before Redding was reunited with her daughters on Monday, she was asked what she would do when they were found, according to ANF.
“Hug them. I’m gonna hug them. I think they’re hungry, so I’m gonna feed them. I don’t know, I just want them back,” said Redding.