Meet Hope Claiborne, Makenna Rogers, Logan Hultman, and Kashton Claiborne – Roseville, California’s “Bicycle Brigade.”

They sound like something out of a pre-teen novel, but we assure you they’re very real – and they’ve even helped solve a mystery.

They were called into action by a voice emanating from a helicopter overhead on September 30, 2019.

In need of help

As the helicopter zoomed over their neighborhood, Clairborne and Rogers – who are both 11 years old – heard a loudspeaker announcement: police were searching for Glenetta Belford, a 97-year-old woman who had wandered away from a residential care facility.

The woman was last seen at 4:15 pm and according to police: “She suffers from dementia and is mostly non-verbal. Recently she’s been known to hide or hunker down in a location. She was last seen wearing a red button-down shirt and white pants. She is a white female adult, 5-1, 110 lbs with short white hair.”

Since it was already after 4 pm, so time was of the essence. After all, they couldn’t be out long after dark, which starts to come all too early in those Fall months.

Forming the brigade

The girls decided to enlist some help as they answered the call to action. They ran home from the park they were hanging out in to grab their bikes. Clairborne’s 10-year-old brother Kash and his friend Logan, also 10, were there and joined the search party on their bikes.

As volunteers walked the streets, the kids had the advantage, zooming around on their bikes in search of Ms. Belford.

And have no fear, they had permission – even if it was mixed with skepticism. Hope and Kash’s dad, Daniel Claiborne, shared a photo of the missing woman that he found online so they knew who they were looking for.

“I sent them a picture of her and thought, ‘Okay, have fun,’” Claiborne said. “But they were genuinely determined that they were going to find her.

The first pass

The foursome scoured the streets, parks, parking lots, and anywhere else they could think to look, but to no avail.

The kids returned home to refuel and patch up an injury Logan had received from falling off his bike and then headed right back out again to resume the search.

Then, at 6:30, Hope saw a woman matching Belford’s description.

Mystery solved

Just before they would be forced to return home again because of the dark, Hope shouted to her friends “Look! There she is!”

According to The Washington Post, Logan recalled Hope telling the other three kids “Yes! Guys, that has to be her,” as she pointed to an elderly woman with a red button-down and white pants who was approaching a street light. She was dangerously close to approaching a very busy street.

“I was so excited to find her. We all went over to her and asked, ‘What are you doing?’” Hope reportedly said.

But the woman was confused and wasn’t going to come easily.

“She didn’t really understand us and told us to go away.”

The rescue

Luckily, the kids hatched another plan – three of them would talk to the woman, distracting her from trying to cross the street while Hope dialed 911.

The dispatcher was taken aback when he heard a child’s voice on the line saying they had found the missing woman, but sent a squad car to the location. Belford was safely returned to her residential facility.

Rob Baquera, the public information officer for the Roseville Police Department, praised the kids’ efforts:

“What could have been a much larger crisis was diverted by these junior detectives who jumped into action,” he said.

Their parents were proud too, of course.

The four kids had all the motivation they needed to go on the search.

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

Source: YouTube – Inside Edition, Washington Post, YouTube – FOX40 News