So, here in the neighborhood there was a big tizzy yesterday because an eighth grader late for school at the local parochial kiddie warehouse* said that his absence was caused by "three masked men kidnapping him in a van".
Fortunately "he was able to escape, but not before riding around with the suspects in the neighborhood."
The response to this... tale of woe was to send the neighborhood to DEFCON 1. The school went on lockdown, letters were generated and mailed to parents, detectives patrolled the streets, reporters ran around feeding on gushing emotions, kids walked home in skittish herdlets, and...
...and am I the only person whose initial (and continuing) response was "Wow, I told some whoppers in my time, but I generally had the good sense not to double down when they threatened to get the cops involved"?
*Which happens to be the polling place for Roseholme Cottage.
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First thing I thought of was the old country song "Don't pay the ransom honey, I've escaped"
Terry
Fla
Well, I did pull the old brass fire alarm in 2nd grade. Was standing outside the principals office when I did. Just fiddling about with the shiny brass &steel mechanism. Denied it under duress, and still got sent home. Where's the justice system when you need it, eh?
No, that doesn't sound suspicious at all.
Why not double down? It's not like they will do anything to the precious little snowflake with reality impairment. If, however, the parents of said snowflake take matters into their own hands, it is virtually guaranteed the DEFCON 1 will descend upon their house.
Funnily enough, I had a case a couple of years ago of this sort. Local eight year old reported that a van pulled up beside him and the occupants tried to get him to get in.
Yeah right.
Turns out, trio of 17 year olds thought it would be funny to lure an eight year old into their van and dump him at the mall across town.
The luring (followed by threatening) didn't work, the child ran off. A witness unloading groceries from the car saw it all, and the intended victim had seen one of the boys before at a house near his own.
When found, the van criminals separately admitted their plan and actions.
So one never knows, do one?
Someone had a test that he did not study for.
The only crimes in that neighborhood are crimes against fashion.
Shootin' Buddy
staghounds,
"So one never knows, do one?"
No, but one knows how one would wager. ;)
I defer to the wisdom of Uncle Buck:
Precious Snowflake would be walked all the way to class every day by Dad, dressed in tatty robe, bunny slippers, food-stained wife-beater t-shirt, and torn boxers. Picked up at door of classroom same way and walked home.
TV would bear a striking resemblance to schoolbooks during every waking moment, a lightbulb the only electronic device permited to be used, and extra-curricular trips outside of the house would be a distant memory.
For a month or two, minimum.
Wouldn't leave so much as a mark anywhere but the moldable little soul.
The report I saw said he was roughed up by the assailants, so there would be physical injury to back this up right?
I too am utterly skeptical, they drove for 20 minutes and when he escaped, he ran to the school. That makes sense right? I mean, it's not like in 20min you can be across town in Indy.
My guess as to why the police go to DEFCON 1 in these situations is:
1. They'll get skewered in the media and by word of mouth if they don't and it's got a shred of reality.
2. This is the ideal use of police budget, namely every resource has to respond to a citizen's need and no one ends up getting arrested. That means they have an argument that they need more resources when budget time rolls around and no arrests = lower reported crime rate, which is also good when budget time rolls around.
3. In tight budget times, it makes no sense to have the SWAT team or the million dollar bomb squad robot sitting around gathering dust. Someone's line item might get cut.
-SM
Joseph: They drove around in a serpentine pattern in case the police spotted them. You know, just like in that movie he saw last week on TV.
But, but . . . children *never* lie about stuff like this! We've been told this by Respected Authorities over and over. (Said Respected Authorities being either childless or so entirely clueless that they always believed their Precious Snowflake when he/she was channeling Baghdad Bob.)
So Joe Biden's grandson lives in Indy?
Gerry
I spent an entire Summer grounded from driving because I and a couple of friends had a fit of teenage angst, skipped Church and drove across town to circle the house of a girl who had dumped one of the friends while blaring Kiss' "Burn Bitch Burn" on the stereo of my LeBaron convertible.
As we high tailed it out of her neighborhood I came up on a dead end and locked 'em up sliding into a curb blowing a tire, bending a rim and doing almost $700 (in 1986 dollars) to the suspension.
I owned up to skipping Church but lied about where we were and what we were doing up until my father insisted on seeing the accident site.
Scott J
You had a Lebaron convertible ......
And are willing to admit it publicly?
He was following Wanda Sykes's Rule.
Sobriant, go check the YouTube vid I linked way down in the comments to Tam's crosspost from Facebook.
You think someone as goofy-looking as me worries about appearances? I gave up on ever being cool about 20 years ago :)
As someone who grew up liking Miami Vice a bit too much (yeah, I own the box set) that car had one feature that allowed me to overlook all the otherwise craptasticness of it: it was a CONVERTIBLE.
The bullshit is strong in this one, Obiwan.
The captcha word is "easytit". Hmmm...
Perhaps I'm the only one thinking that things could actually have been made much, much worse. Say the little turd had claimed that he'd been anally raped with a butcher knife by a man in a clown suit (which miraculously left no marks) and that all of the local neighbors were in on it.
Sound familiar? Does the name "Amirault" come to mind?
People did hard time, convicted by deranged prosecutors after an almost literal witch-hunt, for exactly that. Because we all know that the children don't lie about such things...until pressured into by LEO's, shrinks, and prosecutors.
Unfortunately, we can wring our hands all we want at all the over-reacting about this, but this behavior is required by law. Failure to report a child's allegation of abuse is a felony in some states. In Indiana, it's a class B misdemeanor. Here in TX, it's a Class A, which will get you at least a night in the pokey.
I'm involved in the Boy Scouts, and we've been instructed that we are required to report ANY allegation; our own judgement of the facts is irrelevant. I'm sure the schools are no different.
Unintended consequences, etc, ad nauseum.
jf
I could never pull that off. Wouldn't nobody kidnap me, I was disagreeable then as now. Hell, I couldn't get priests to molest me.
Double Down? That kid went all in! He'd better study poli sci 'cuz that's our next prez!
I'm just shocked that og admitted to trying to get priests to molest him.
s
My great-grandpa always said not to worry about somebody grabbing you on a dark street; "soon as they get you under a street light, they'll let you go!"
(Great-Grandpa was a bit of a stinker.)
Imagination may come back to bite that kid in the butt...
Nah, someone else nailed it.
I see a future congressman budding out right there.
Oh, John, you and me both! I think I was about 7 years old when I broke the glass and threw the switch. The Fire Department response was impressive, and right scary to little false-alarmer me. I eventually confessed to my Mom, who after reading the riot act to me, had the good sense not to tell anyone else, not even my Dad.
Blackwing, it reminded me of the McMartin Preschool case here in sunny Southern California. The stupid investigators should have realized they were being zoomed looooong before they dug up the school playground looking for the secret underground room all the awful allegations occurred in.
No, that is not what makes you a bad person.
Og, have you ever read "The Ransom of Red Chief", by O. henry? (I'm sure you have.)
For the others, the story was about a coupla small-time criminals kidnapping a boy for ransom, but then having to pay his parents to take him back. Seems like Og was a similar kid. M'self, I was more of a Sunday School boy. Most of the time.
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