Port Orange, FL – The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office arrested an 11-year-old girl on Wednesday after she called 911 and falsely reporter her friend’s kidnapping as part of a prank challenge she saw on social media (video below).

The incident began in the morning on July 26 when the juvenile suspect, whose name has not been released, called 911 and claimed her 14-year-old friend had been abducted by “an armed male driving a white van,” WOFL reported.

The 11-year-old girl told the 911 call taker that she was following the van her friend had been pulled into in a blue Jeep.

The report prompted a massive response from law enforcement, WOFL reported.

Volusia County sheriff’s deputies and Edgewater police, New Smyrna Beach police, and Port Orange police responded to search for the white van the 11 year old had described, but no such vehicle was located after more than an hour of searching.

Deputies tracked the girl’s cell phone and determined the text messages to 911 had originated from a home located in Port Orange, WOFL reported.

Officials said that when deputies arrived at the home and talked to the girl’s father, the suspect emerged from the home holding her phone as it rang with a call from 911 dispatch.

The sheriff’s department said the girl admitted to deputies that she fabricated the entire kidnapping story as part of a prank she saw in a YouTube challenge, NBC News reported.

She told deputies thought “it would be funny,” according to the sheriff’s office statement.

Bodycam video released after the child was arrested showed the handcuffed girl promising deputies that she won’t ever prank 911 again.

She has been charged with a felony count of making a false police report regarding a firearm and a misdemeanor count of misuse of 911, NBC News reported.

The girl was booked into a juvenile detention facility after she was taken into custody.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood condemned the YouTube prank as a dangerous misuse of public resources.

Sheriff Chitwood vowed that his department would fully investigate any pranks that wasted law enforcement resources, NBC News reported.

Bodycam video showed the deputies lecturing the girl on how she should use her arrest as a learning experience so she doesn’t mess up the rest of her life.

“I’m telling you this right now,” one of the deputies said in the video. “You’re going to take this as a lesson at 11 years old that if you do something stupid in the future, you’re going to enjoy those cuffs.”

Watch the arrest unfold in the video below:

Florida: An 11-year-old girl was arrested for falsely reporting to 9-1-1 that her friend was kidnapped. A #YouTube #challenge that was suppose to be #funny. pic.twitter.com/ZW2iZMDvS2

— Carime Hernández (@CarimeHernandez) July 27, 2023