LittleMissContrary
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uote:
Originally Posted by iamnotagolem
Again this is just my personal opinion, I could be way off base.
The report of the man on a motorcycle who was following his 5 y/o who was on a bicycle, reported the incident 3 hours after it allegedly happened. I feel like there are plausible explanations other than an attempted kidnapping.
The girl who was "touched" by a man outside a laundry mat.
Those specific ones I'm skeptical of believing, but they could be exactly what happened.
I honestly believe that hysteria causes a lot of reporting of attempted abductions. Say I had a floral shop and used a white van for deliveries, I see some people outside in their front yard and pull to the curb and ask "which way to Washington Street?" adult in yard points me in the right direction then they later see on the news that a white van has been linked to an abduction, they call the police and say that a white van tried to talk to their kids. It's true, I had a white van, I talked to the kids in the yard, but also the adult. It just isn't an incident related to the abductions.
Hopefully that scenario makes sense.
While I do feel that a lot of reported abduction attempts were misconstrued, or exaggerated, I still feel it's in the best interest of the public to report such things.
I do agree this isn't the first summer reports of abductions have been made, my guess there is a combination of media sensationalizing the stories because of Lizzie & Lyric that otherwise wouldn't hit the news and misunderstanding/misconstruing a situation.
"
On some level I agree with you, however this seems to be one of those tail chasing exercises where we can debate whether or not the effect of the internet is merely creating a heightened sense of things or if there are really more abductions. Well much like skirt lengths, I believe there are lenticular ontogeny curves which also occur in abduction trends.
When I was about 11 years old, my best friend and I decided we were going to build a tree house fort in the field at the end of the block. We had big plans for ourselves that day. Anticipating at least a few hours of work, I had brought a paper lunch sack with some Chips Ahoy cookies and two apples. One thing I neglected to mention is that I was a latch key kid since the third grade. This meant that I did many things my father never knew about. I would swim alone,(well I did have a German Shepard), pursued my lifelong love-making candy, and went many places I probably should not have gone.
In any event, on this particular day, my best friend and I were hell bent on building this tree fort. About 15 minutes into our project, my best friend anxiously turned to me and said, "Let's get out of here". It took me a minute to look in the direction she had pointed when she suggested we leave. I was really focused on trying to build an access to the tree. Meanwhile, she had hightailed it to her bike, which we always laid on the ground, and started pedaling away. By the time I realized there were two men approaching me rather quickly from the other side of the field, I panicked. Rather than maintaining my cool, I did the dumbest thing imaginable, I grabbed my bag of cookies and apples and ran for my bike. Why was that the dumbest thing I could have done? Well my clumsy butt managed to get the paper sack wedged in the spokes of my bike as I attempted to get on and take off in a hurry. The men, two beer belly boasting, beard wearing men in dirty looking baseball caps (actually the trucker type hats way before they were cool) had covered a lot of ground since they exited their dirty looking white pick up truck with recycled cans in the back. They seemed to be approaching me faster than I could manage to get away. Eventually I was able to kick the paper sack out of my spokes and ride like the wind to safety. When we went back to her house, we told her aunt what had happened. She laughed it off, and we never discussed it with any adults ever again.
The point of my story is this: there was a road on one side of a field, and a road on the other side of the field. Actually, they were just streets that came to a dead end at the field. Development had not yet completely expanded to the field area at that time. In retrospect, there was absolutely no reason that those men should have been in that field. They were clearly focused on the two of us, and I had a very gut level reaction of incapacitating fear the minute I saw them hauling *advertiser censored** towards us. I am not sure what the outcome of that situation would have been, had I not been able to get away. If my best friend had not been quite as vigilant in observing our surroundings, my habit of completely focusing on the goal of that afternoon would have rendered me completely vulnerable to anything that posed a threat to me.
I don't know what those men had planned to do, and I am grateful I did not find out. I do not know what the individuals in the recent abduction attempts were planning to do, but I am certain that it is worthwhile being overly cautious than it is to find out that another precious little light has been extinguished.
Originally Posted by iamnotagolem
Again this is just my personal opinion, I could be way off base.
The report of the man on a motorcycle who was following his 5 y/o who was on a bicycle, reported the incident 3 hours after it allegedly happened. I feel like there are plausible explanations other than an attempted kidnapping.
The girl who was "touched" by a man outside a laundry mat.
Those specific ones I'm skeptical of believing, but they could be exactly what happened.
I honestly believe that hysteria causes a lot of reporting of attempted abductions. Say I had a floral shop and used a white van for deliveries, I see some people outside in their front yard and pull to the curb and ask "which way to Washington Street?" adult in yard points me in the right direction then they later see on the news that a white van has been linked to an abduction, they call the police and say that a white van tried to talk to their kids. It's true, I had a white van, I talked to the kids in the yard, but also the adult. It just isn't an incident related to the abductions.
Hopefully that scenario makes sense.
While I do feel that a lot of reported abduction attempts were misconstrued, or exaggerated, I still feel it's in the best interest of the public to report such things.
I do agree this isn't the first summer reports of abductions have been made, my guess there is a combination of media sensationalizing the stories because of Lizzie & Lyric that otherwise wouldn't hit the news and misunderstanding/misconstruing a situation.
"
On some level I agree with you, however this seems to be one of those tail chasing exercises where we can debate whether or not the effect of the internet is merely creating a heightened sense of things or if there are really more abductions. Well much like skirt lengths, I believe there are lenticular ontogeny curves which also occur in abduction trends.
When I was about 11 years old, my best friend and I decided we were going to build a tree house fort in the field at the end of the block. We had big plans for ourselves that day. Anticipating at least a few hours of work, I had brought a paper lunch sack with some Chips Ahoy cookies and two apples. One thing I neglected to mention is that I was a latch key kid since the third grade. This meant that I did many things my father never knew about. I would swim alone,(well I did have a German Shepard), pursued my lifelong love-making candy, and went many places I probably should not have gone.
In any event, on this particular day, my best friend and I were hell bent on building this tree fort. About 15 minutes into our project, my best friend anxiously turned to me and said, "Let's get out of here". It took me a minute to look in the direction she had pointed when she suggested we leave. I was really focused on trying to build an access to the tree. Meanwhile, she had hightailed it to her bike, which we always laid on the ground, and started pedaling away. By the time I realized there were two men approaching me rather quickly from the other side of the field, I panicked. Rather than maintaining my cool, I did the dumbest thing imaginable, I grabbed my bag of cookies and apples and ran for my bike. Why was that the dumbest thing I could have done? Well my clumsy butt managed to get the paper sack wedged in the spokes of my bike as I attempted to get on and take off in a hurry. The men, two beer belly boasting, beard wearing men in dirty looking baseball caps (actually the trucker type hats way before they were cool) had covered a lot of ground since they exited their dirty looking white pick up truck with recycled cans in the back. They seemed to be approaching me faster than I could manage to get away. Eventually I was able to kick the paper sack out of my spokes and ride like the wind to safety. When we went back to her house, we told her aunt what had happened. She laughed it off, and we never discussed it with any adults ever again.
The point of my story is this: there was a road on one side of a field, and a road on the other side of the field. Actually, they were just streets that came to a dead end at the field. Development had not yet completely expanded to the field area at that time. In retrospect, there was absolutely no reason that those men should have been in that field. They were clearly focused on the two of us, and I had a very gut level reaction of incapacitating fear the minute I saw them hauling *advertiser censored** towards us. I am not sure what the outcome of that situation would have been, had I not been able to get away. If my best friend had not been quite as vigilant in observing our surroundings, my habit of completely focusing on the goal of that afternoon would have rendered me completely vulnerable to anything that posed a threat to me.
I don't know what those men had planned to do, and I am grateful I did not find out. I do not know what the individuals in the recent abduction attempts were planning to do, but I am certain that it is worthwhile being overly cautious than it is to find out that another precious little light has been extinguished.
