TV and news often portray most teenagers as too busy to notice the world around them.
The typical story will talk about how teens are on their phones, glued to social media apps. But that isn’t always the case, as one 17-year-old recently proved.
With quick-thinking and poise beyond his years, Malyk Bonnet is being called a hero by Canadian police – and it all started at the bus stop.
Bonnet was at a bus stop in Quebec. He had just gotten off work at a local restaurant, when he noticed a man and woman nearby, arguing.
“The guy was screaming at her, the girl. He wasn’t really gentle with her, and I started watching, because I thought he would hit her, so I approached them a little bit,” Bonnet said.
When the couple noticed him, they asked if he could give them money to catch the bus to the nearby city of Laval. After saying yes, Bonnet said he managed to sneak in a quick moment with the terrified woman.
The girl was saying, ‘Please help me. He don’t want to let me go. I want to go home but he don’t want to let me go,” he said.
So Bonnet knew he had to help. He told the couple, even though it wasn’t true, that he also lived in Laval and would tag along with them on the bus.
While Malyk Bonnet, right, was giving an interview, a man stopped and asked for a photo with the young hero. Photo from YouTube
“My plan was to keep them in a public place, where there’s a lot of people. I decided to make myself friendly with the man, so he would trust me. So I played my game,” Bonnet said.
The resourceful teen would later learn that the man was considered a danger to the public, and police had already been looking for him and the woman.
“We were looking for a 29-year-old woman who was kidnapped by her former boyfriend earlier that day, and we believed that man was very dangerous,” said Laval police Lt. Daniel Guérin. The man had been ordered to keep away from his ex-girlfriend, and had been recently convicted of assault and issuing death threats against her.
However, Bonnet ‘befriended’ the man during the trip into Laval, keeping him talking the entire time.
Once the trio arrived in Laval, Bonnet knew he needed to find the right moment to call police. He offered to take the couple to a restaurant, giving them $50 for food.
I mean yo, money ain’t nothing. Food ain’t nothing. For a life? A life is really more important than my money,” Bonnet said.
After realizing his cellphone battery had died, he told the man and woman he needed to use the bathroom. Once he was away from them, he quickly borrowed a phone and called the police. They were there within a few minutes.
Malyk Bonnet is applauded during his visit to police headquarters. Photo by Laval Police
Bonnet said he remembers clearly the woman’s face, once the police had arrived. “She was almost crying. She was so happy, so happy not to be with him.”
The man was arrested on charges of kidnapping, forcible confinement and assault.
Lt. Guérin said that what Bonnet did was something he’d never seen before. “He managed the situation very well and made good decisions that probably saved the life of this woman,” he said.
The officers awarded Bonnet with $225 dollars to pay him back for the money he spent, as well as gave him a tour of police headquarters.
However, the young man still thinks what he did was something that anyone else would have done.
“I don’t think of myself as a hero, I’m just a normal guy. I guess I saved a life, though, and that’s really awesome,” Bonnet said.
But his biggest fan through all of this – his mother.
“My mom is so proud of me. She bought like eight (newspapers). She’s like, ‘I’m going to show them to your kids one day,” he said.
