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TwitThis"Hold Your Fire"
Guns drawn, police jumped from their cars and converged on the Mercedes. "Get your hands up," yelled Tippett as he approached the carjacker.Baralo ran toward the scene. The kids! He had to get them to safety.
"Hold your fire," yelled Baralo.
His fellow officers waited as he opened the SUV's back door -- a small boy was standing there. He reached up his arms to the officer. Baralo picked him up, placed him in the arms of another officer, then reached in to unbuckle the little girl. She clung to Baralo as he radioed for a helicopter to take the toddlers to the hospital. As the children were being rescued, the officers shattered the driver's side window, pulled the carjacker out, and placed him under arrest.
Back at the fire station on River Road, the police reported the good news to Marna and her family. The children were safe. Marna embraced her husband, and wept in relief. Police escorted the Plaias to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, where Paul and Edie had been airlifted by helicopter. Three-year-old Paul had a cut and bruise on his face, but otherwise, he and his sister were unharmed.
Trooper Baralo still held 18-month-old Edie in his arms. She had clung to him from the moment he rescued her, refusing to let the doctors take her away. Only when Marna reached for Edie, the child she had almost lost forever, did the little girl finally let go.
Police found cocaine paraphernalia on the floor of the stolen Infiniti. Carl E. Jones, 33, who was captured in Marna Plaia's Mercedes, was convicted in May 2004 of carjacking and assault. He awaits trial on several other counts, including kidnapping.
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