Rally in West Phila. draws attention to abduction case

Dozens of people gathered in the cold Saturday afternoon for a support rally outside the West Philadelphia school where a 5-year-old girl was abducted last month.

The demonstrators offered varied messages at the chaotic, hour-long rally, but all had their emotions fueled by the same event: the Jan. 14 abduction of the girl from her kindergarten class at Bryant Elementary School.

The girl's aunt Salima Rashid said she went to show appreciation for demonstrators' efforts to raise awareness of the crime.

"[I hope] that the community will stand up in support of aiding these types of issues," Rashid, 34, said, citing school and community safety as concerns.

Police said the girl was taken by a woman who identified herself as the child's mother and signed her out. The woman was wearing a black, Muslim-style niqab that left only her eyes uncovered.

The girl was found the next morning by a passerby at a playground near 69th Street and Patterson Avenue in Upper Darby.

Saturday's rally began at the intersection of South 60th Street and Hazel Avenue, right outside the school. What began as a circle, with some holding hands, turned into a compact crowd due to difficulty hearing the multidenominational prayers.

The event was billed as a grassroots gathering of women, but because men came out as well, the crowd was split by gender to march separately through the neighborhood.

Speakers with bullhorns offered varied chants, with some calling for the perpetrators to turn themselves in or for anyone with information to step forward. Mixed in with the calls for justice were chants about peace, reflecting some demonstrators' larger concerns about neighborhood safety.

After a brief circuit around the neighborhood, including a moment of silence at a street corner where the girl had been captured on video, demonstrators handed out white balloons to be released into the sky. The balloons represented innocence and purity, group leaders said.

One activist said the community wouldn't stop looking for the girl's abductors.