UPI
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota teenager, fearing his mother’s alleged attacker would hear him if he called 911, used Facebook to summon police, officials said.
Hearing his mother, Kelly Heinl, 33, scream for help as her boyfriend allegedly beat her, the 15-year-old, of St. Paul, used his cellphone to post a message on Facebook, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Tuesday.
During the course of the alleged beating Friday, Heinl told the boy to call police, but the boyfriend, Reggie LeAndrew Hart, 31, took away the mother’s and son’s cellphones, a police complaint read.
The boy told Hart he needed his phone back to charge it for the next day for school, and Hart returned it to him.
The boy quietly went on Facebook, the newspaper said.
"(My son) was trying to think how he could get the police here,” Heinl said. “He wrote, ‘Would somebody please call 911 - my mom’s boyfriend won’t let her use the phone.’”
A friend of the boy’s saw the Facebook post and contacted police, who responded to the call and arrested Hart, 31, who was charged Friday in Ramsey County District Court with interference with a 911 call and domestic assault.
He was being held on $18,000 bond.
Copyright 2011 U.P.I.