Denver police issued a missing-children Amber Alert late Monday but called it off a short time later when the two 11-year-old Lake Middle School students were found safe in Wheat Ridge.
The boys, Juan Cervantes and Gregory Madrigal, were believed to have been abducted while walking home from school in the Sloan’s Lake neighborhood, said Denver police Detective Virginia Quinones.
The Amber Alert had been issued fewer than 30 minutes before the boys were located at a store at West 29th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard, Quinones said.
“They were there at their own free will, and both are OK,” Quinones said in a release.
Students at Lake Middle School, at 18th Avenue and Lowell Street, told police the boys were forced into an older white sedan with rusty rims by a middle-aged man with dark hair and a black goatee.
The boys are friends and were believed to be walking together when other students said they were abducted, Quinones said.
