Missing 12-Year-Old Chinese Tourist Found With Family In Queens
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A 12-year-old tourist from China at the center of a nationwide AMBER Alert was found safe Friday with her parents in Queens.
Police said JingJing Ma was visiting the United States with a tour group that stopped in New York City, then Washington, D.C.
The girl was preparing to board a plane Thursday morning at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when she walked away and got into a car with her parents instead.
It was the first time JingJing had seen her mom and dad since they moved to the U.S. two years ago and she stayed in China with other relatives, CBS2's Ali Bauman reported.
"She's safe, she's fine. She was not in danger in any way," the family's attorney, Anna Demidchik, told reporters Friday night.
Police released surveillance images they said showed JingJing walk out of the arrivals gate with an unknown woman, who helped her change clothes in the bathroom, before they both got into an SUV with an unknown man.
"Critical missing, extreme danger. We have a 12-year-old girl who we don't know where she is, we don't know who she is with," Chief David Huchler, with the Metro Washington Airport Authority Police, said earlier Friday. "For us, this is our priority number one.
The family's attorney later said her parents were the people seen on the video.
"Once the parents found out the child was reported as abducted, they came to us and said, 'we saw this on television,'" said attorney Mike Vista.
"They're in the country lawfully, they're not illegally here," Demidchik added.
"They clearly wanted to just reunite with their child. That was the main focus of what they were doing," said Vista.
Police said JingJing came to the U.S. on a visa that was issued for the tour group.
Asked whether this was a plan to bring the family back together, Demidchik said, "We don't know that."
"We know the first opportunity for them to see each other was now two years later," she added.
The attorneys said federal investigators interviewed the parents and released the child into their custody.
Asked whether they're apologetic, Vista replied, "I don't think apologetic would be the correct terminology."
"I think they're just overjoyed to be with their child," he said.
"And also tired," Demidchik added.
When JingJing's tour group was in New York, investigators said she also had an encounter with an unknown couple while visiting the World Trade Center. It's unclear whether that was also her parents.
The FBI has taken over the investigation.
