A Florida man was arrested after he kidnapped his girlfriend's 1-year-old boy and led officers on a chase before he used the child as a human shield outside a McDonald's last week, authorities said.
The Flagler County Sheriff's Office responded to a home on Bunker Lane in Palm Coast, about 60 miles south of Jacksonville, on the evening of Sept. 27 about a report of a possible child abduction, it said in a news release.
Brandon Leohner, 27, the boyfriend of the child's mother, abducted the 1-year-old "while armed with a handgun and was driving with the child in his lap as he left the residence," the sheriff's office said.
Deputies tried to pull Leohner over after he drove recklessly through medians and sped on Belle Terre Parkway, the sheriff's office said. He did not comply and instead fled east onto State Road 100, driving through oncoming traffic, before he turned into a McDonald's parking lot in a shopping center, it said.
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Leohner got out of his vehicle near the McDonald's drive-thru with the 1-year-old in his arms, using the child as a human shield and refusing to listen to commands to put the child down, authorities said.
