No good deed goes unpunished?!?

[Art Vandelay]

A 14 YO boy is accused of attempted abduction I understand the police's need to be vigilant with anything involving a small child, but this seems way over the top.

[SloanHater]

Good deed? I'm missing the part where taking a child out a store where she lost her parent is a good deed?

Why wouldn't you take the child to the store's management and have the mother paged? How does the author of this article know whether or not this teen has a criminal record?

I love how the author says that he 'pieced together the facts' without talking to the mother or the police. The mother obviously didn't feel that the teen nor his mother were seeking to return the girl as she insisted the police be called.

[dabrockster]

A 14 YO boy is accused of attempted abduction I understand the police's need to be vigilant with anything involving a small child, but this seems way over the top.

I have to agree. It is obvious he did not have any ill intentions..

[Clark Addison]

Good deed? I'm missing the part where taking a child out a store where she lost her parent is a good deed?

Why wouldn't you take the child to the store's management and have the mother paged? How does the author of this article know whether or not this teen has a criminal record?

I love how the author says that he 'pieced together the facts' without talking to the mother or the police. The mother obviously didn't feel that the teen nor his mother were seeking to return the girl as she insisted the police be called.

If you thought the parent is outside, why wouldn't you take her there? Especially if you are a 14 year old. Granted, this is working from the assumption that what the reporter said is accurate, which may not be true.

[marsupial]

Here's the thing:

We have the little girl's mother losing track of her daughter.

We have Edwin's mother not taking the girl from Edwin and turning her over to a store employee.

And we have Edwin in handcuffs.

I'm not sure the problem here is with the 14-year-old.

Ultimately, why didn't the 14-year-old's mother say, "let's take her up to customer service and have the mother paged."

[Katy Lied]

Just last week, I encountered something very similar to this story.

I parked my car at WalMart, and as I was walking toward the WalMart entrance, the door of a parked car off to my left opened and a young boy, about 3 years old, runs out of the car. He is yelling "wait mommy, wait mommy" at the top of his lungs, and he darts down the parking aisle and toward the store. (Apparently, 3-year-olds move like the wind. This one did.)

I look at the car he emerged from and I see an older woman, rather obese, dressed in shorty shorts and a tube top, no shoes and hair in disarray stumbling to follow the kid. Instantly I figure out what happened. The kid's mom is in WalMart, and she left the kid in the car with the grandmother, who is not dressed to be seen in public. She hesitated to follow the kid because of the way she was dressed. (Did I mention a tube top and no bra?)

By now, the boy is darting between some pretty heavy traffic, so I start sprinting toward him, but he avoids the cars and makes it through the automatic doors. All the while bellowing for his mom at the top of his lungs.

He breezes past the geriatric greeter and starts running toward the back of the store. Since I'm running far behind him, I can see everyone's reaction: every person freezes at seeing this tot by himself. Then they start looking around for his mother, or a security guard.

Anyways, I caught up to him, and was going to grab him and take him back to his grandma, but I was stopped by the thought of what might happen. The kid would start screaming, and everyone would think I was a child kidnapper. I motioned to the greeter, and he went off to get a manager.

When I was leaving the store, I saw the kid holding hands with his very embarrassed grandmother.

[Slim]

This reminds me of what has become a frequent occurrence for me at the park. I take my 3 year old and 4 month old to the park a few times a week while my wife goes to the gym.

Almost every time we are there, there is another kid (always a different kid) there with no parent in site. Anyway, as I'm pushing my son in the swing the other little kids always ask me to help them into the swings and to push them. The conversation usually goes like this:

Kid - "Will you push me in the swings?"
Slim - "Do you have a mommy or daddy here that can do that for you?"
Kid - "He/she is way over there (pointing in some random direction). Will you do it?"
Slim - "I'm sorry, but your mommy and daddy don't know me so I'm not sure that they would want me to be playing with you".

I think what happens is the parents come to watch their older kids play soft/base/football and at the park and let their little ones go play on the toys unsupervised. I always feel really bad for the kids because, seriously, anyone could run off with one of those children easily before their parent notices.

[Jacob]

This reminds me of what has become a frequent occurrence for me at the park. I take my 3 year old and 4 month old to the park a few times a week while my wife goes to the gym.

Almost every time we are there, there is another kid (always a different kid) there with no parent in site. Anyway, as I'm pushing my son in the swing the other little kids always ask me to help them into the swings and to push them. The conversation usually goes like this:

Kid - "Will you push me in the swings?"
Slim - "Do you have a mommy or daddy here that can do that for you?"
Kid - "He/she is way over there (pointing in some random direction). Will you do it?"
Slim - "I'm sorry, but your mommy and daddy don't know me so I'm not sure that they would want me to be playing with you".

I think what happens is the parents come to watch their older kids play soft/base/football and at the park and let their little ones go play on the toys unsupervised. I always feel really bad for the kids because, seriously, anyone could run off with one of those children easily before their parent notices.

But they haven't been abducted and they are having fun, so there is really no reason to feel bad for them, at least not until something bad actually happens, which may be very unlikely.
Isn't that like feeling bad for a kid who is sitting in the back seat of a car, because there is a chance that that car could get in a wreck?

OK. Maybe I'm one of those bad parents that lets their kids run amok. I'm not, but I probably will be some day.

[Slim]

But they haven't been abducted and they are having fun, so there is really no reason to feel bad for them, at least not until something bad actually happens, which may be very unlikely.
Isn't that like feeling bad for a kid who is sitting in the back seat of a car, because there is a chance that that car could get in a wreck?

OK. Maybe I'm one of those bad parents that lets their kids run amok. I'm not, but I probably will be some day.

I feel bad for kids whose parents allow them to be in situations that are unnecessarily dangerous. I live in the kidnapping capital of America. It may be unlikely that someone grabs them, but it is a definite possibility and a completely avoidable situation.

[SloanHater]

Something doesn't add up between the the author's obviously slanted opinion piece and the pursuance of the charge.

Had this simply been a misunderstanding and the boy really trying to do the right thing, the police may have charged the boy, but no prosecutor would try the case. Obviously there is a piece of information, perhaps a juvenile record or witness of impropriety, that leaves the authorities confident that this isn't simply an overreaction.

[Coach McGuirk]

Art just wanted someone to embed this. Fine Art, I will do it!


[YOUTUBE]v/BqufngSk-uo&hl=en_US&fs=1&" [/YOUTUBE]

[SloanHater]

Art just wanted someone to embed this. Fine Art, I will do it!

Way to make a depressing thread even more depressing.

[statman]

Something doesn't add up between the the author's obviously slanted opinion piece and the pursuance of the charge.

Had this simply been a misunderstanding and the boy really trying to do the right thing, the police may have charged the boy, but no prosecutor would try the case. Obviously there is a piece of information, perhaps a juvenile record or witness of impropriety, that leaves the authorities confident that this isn't simply an overreaction.

Or there's just a douchebag prosecutor, looking for votes, a la the Duke Lacrosse case...

[The Fourth Nephite]

This reminds me of what has become a frequent occurrence for me at the park. I take my 3 year old and 4 month old to the park a few times a week while my wife goes to the gym.

Almost every time we are there, there is another kid (always a different kid) there with no parent in site. Anyway, as I'm pushing my son in the swing the other little kids always ask me to help them into the swings and to push them. The conversation usually goes like this:

Kid - "Will you push me in the swings?"
Slim - "Do you have a mommy or daddy here that can do that for you?"
Kid - "He/she is way over there (pointing in some random direction). Will you do it?"
Slim - "I'm sorry, but your mommy and daddy don't know me so I'm not sure that they would want me to be playing with you".

I think what happens is the parents come to watch their older kids play soft/base/football and at the park and let their little ones go play on the toys unsupervised. I always feel really bad for the kids because, seriously, anyone could run off with one of those children easily before their parent notices.

Same thing happens to me nearly every time I take my kids to the park. It's sad.