LEHIGHTON -- A mother from Carbon County was one of the three people arrested for having an arsenal of weapons in their vehicle while driving through the Holland Tunnel.
People close to that woman from the Lehighton area were in shock to hear she was arrested Tuesday morning along with two men, but they were not surprised that she was trying to save a teenage girl, and say she committed to a cause she believes in.
A road trip to rescue a teenage girl in New York City now has Kimberly Arendt from the Lehighton area locked up in a New Jersey jail.
Bernie Pavlik is shocked to hear his 29-year-old granddaughter now faces serious weapons charges.
"I never thought anything that she'd be caught up like this," said Pavlik. "I thought she was going to do a good deed to help this girl out, I guess, in New York."
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Arendt and two men were pulled over by police just before entering New York City. Authorities stopped them at the Holland Tunnel because of a cracked windshield, and noticed a gun, and then they found an arsenal of weapons in the vehicle.
But people who know Arendt say this was a good deed gone bad.
Arendt, who also goes by the name Kimberly Walker, told friends and family, and even posted on Facebook that she was going to New York with two men, "saving a life with a true hero, why? Because enough is enough."
Enough is Enough is a group that formed earlier this year. It has about 1,000 members on Facebook, mostly people frustrated with the opioid addiction epidemic, many have lost loved ones.
Arendt's family believes the teenager that the trio was allegedly on a mission to rescue was a 16 year old that Arendt met a few years ago while working for a camp for juvenile delinquents.
Family members of Kimberly Arendt are not sure how she heard the teenager might be in trouble but add they don't believe Arendt would have left her daughter with relatives unless she truly was on a mission to rescue someone.
