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HTA grads honoured for heroics

Longboarding proved to be a heroic sport for four Holy Trinity Academy graduates.

Longboarding proved to be a heroic sport for four Holy Trinity Academy graduates.

James Hielema, Arnaud Nimenya, Starlyn Rives-Perez and Carsyn Wright received an Award of Exceptional Recognition at the Calgary Police Service Chief’s Awards Gala Thursday night for assisting a girl who was being sexually assaulted in April of 2015.

The four members of the HTA Class of 2015 were longboarding at the underground parking lot of Chinook Centre when they came upon a man in a tie-and-dress shirt carrying an intoxicated teenage girl at about 11:30 p.m. on April 2, 2015.

They stopped the man and questioned him with concerns about the girl’s safety.

The assailant produced a phone and was able to convince the four young men he was attempting to phone the girl’s father to get her home.

“He kind of convinced us that he was helping her out,” Hielema said. “So we went longboarding for a bit, but we didn’t feel good about that situation.”

They saw the man carry the girl into a stairwell and when they returned to check on her, she was being sexually assaulted.

Hielem and Nimenya were able to chase down and pin the man until police arrived. Rives-Perez, who had asked for assistance from passerbys, later joined the rescue.

“We were able to push him off her and he kept fighting us and it turned it to a mess,” Nimenya said. “At one point he hit us with a longboard. We just wanted to keep him there until the police got there.”

Meanwhile, Wright stayed and comforted the teenage girl.

“I made sure she was ok,” Wright said. “She was under the influence of something, screaming and crying… I was talking to her the whole time.”

Wright admitted he had some problems dealing with the situation afterwards, but added it was an honour to be recognized with his friends.

Rives-Perez said it was just a matter of doing what is right.

“Anybody in their right mind would have done what we did,” Rives-Perez said.

“I think we were all shocked — no one had ever seen anything close to that, we kind of just reacted… But if feels good to be recognized when you do well.”

Hielema said he is proud they helped, but does have second thoughts. He wishes they would have acted sooner.

“It’s really hard for us because we feel we could have done something earlier,” Hielema said. “But you can’t think like that. He convinced us he was just trying to help.

“I don’t know what it was that made us go back, you just get this feeling that something is wrong.”

Although Nimenya was pleased to be recognized that wasn’t the best news of the evening for the four HTA Knights in shining armour.

“We were happy because the police in charge told us that the girl was doing really well,” Nimenya said.

However, they are not quite done yet with the incident.

They are scheduled to go to court in September as witnesses.

The man is facing charges of sexual assault.

Twenty-one other recipients were recognized for their heroic efforts in 2015 at the gala.

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