14-year-old protects rape victim, sister and brother from attacker

14-year-old of James Persyn III of Shepherd, Michigan was at home last week looking after his younger sister and brother when a knocking on the door forever changed his life.

An unidentified woman was pleading as she knocked frantically. James’ father had entrusted him with taking care of his siblings as he went out to run an errand around 10 PM. James let the woman in and escorted her, his 11-year-old sister and 2-year-old brother into a bathroom upstairs. He then armed himself with a hunting knife as a man outside threatened, “Let me in or I’ll kill you.”

The woman in question was walking to her vehicle after class at Central Michigan University earlier that evening when 30-year-old ex-convict Eric Ramsey approached her with a gun, forced her into a car and took her to his mother’s house where he raped her.

Afterwords, this woman managed to leap from Ramsey’s ride and make her way to the home of Persyn. Soon after letting her inside, young James could see Ramsey coming up the driveway in his vehicle. Thinking on his feet, James locked the front and side door before hurrying everyone to the bathroom.

Continuing to show remarkable clarity of thought and resolve in such a traumatic situation, James dialed his dad on his cellphone and told him, “We need help right now. There’s a man outside our door trying to get in, and I’m really afraid.” As his father, James Sr., rushed home in hopes of saving his family, Ramsey gave up his attempts to break in. The con attempted, and failed, to start a fire and then fled.

James Sr. arrived and as he worked desperately to get inside an officer arrived pulling his firearm. The father yelled, “I’m the dad! I’m the dad!”

Ramsey’s rampage ended later that evening as he was shot dead by a police officer. He managed to make one last Facebook post before his life was taken. He texted from his cellphone, ‘Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace.”

Ramsey had been on parole since last summer after serving the minimum five-year prison sentence for assault with intent to do great bodily harm, according to online records.

Young James said of the moment of decision that defined his heroism, “Her voice was, like, she was going to die if I didn’t open that door. A lot of people, maybe most people, would’ve been like, ‘Get the hell off my porch.'” Not James though, he was guided by a different creed.

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