*How Kids Get Abducted*

By Jaden

11 June 2004

From time to time in the news I hear of kids being abducted. There was one just a couple months ago where an 11 year old was abducted by some guy she knew. He held onto her arm and basically led her away. I wonder how this can be. How does somebody swipe a kid w/o the parents or anybody knowing? Well the other night I found out.

Nerisa and I took our daughter to one of the playgrounds here in town. It’s part of an outdoors sports center. There is a swimming pool there, a couple of ball diamonds, a tennis court and the playground for the kids. The playground is next to the tennis court and is about 100 yds from the ball fields.

We arrived and there were a couple of ball games going on and there were a few young kids running around the playground w/o any adult supervision. Anything could happen, kids could fall and get hurt, they could get dirt in their eyes, they could break an arm. The possibilities are endless.

We played with Podunk and a small girl about 3 or 4 came over and started playing close to us. No big deal, she just seemed lonely and wanted to play with somebody so we included her with us. I’m wondering where her parents are.

After awhile most of the kids left, but this little girl didn’t. Podunk took off running to the other side of the playground and Nerisa went running after her. This little girl sat down, put her elbows on her knees and put her face in her hands. "I don’t have anybody to play with." I replied, "You can keep playing with us." Her answer was "I want you to play with me." That struck me hard. This kid who doesn’t know me wants me to play with her. Maybe I just have a soft spot for kids. It made me think, maybe this kid doesn’t have decent parents (obviously they’re negligent), and maybe she doesn’t even have a daddy. That’s way too common around here. So I asked what she wanted to do, she wanted to swing. So we walked over to the swings and I put her in one of the toddler ones and started pushing. I asked, "What’s your name?" "Faith." "That’s a pretty name." "Do you have a mommy & daddy?" "Yea." "Where are they?" "My dad’s playing a game (baseball) and my mom’s watching." "How old are you?" "Somebody said I was 3."

So here is a 3 year old all by herself totally unsupervised with some stranger on a playground. Good. We talked for a little while longer and then Podunk realized what I was doing. She got mad, it didn’t take long for me to get on her turd list. A few minutes later the girl’s mother showed up to collect her. She saw me with her daughter and didn’t even look at me twice or even ask who I was. I could have been ANYBODY.

Fortunately we don’t have to worry too much about child abductions around here, but it CAN happen.

Faith was safe that night.

Now, let’s change the story some.

A child molester is hanging around this playground. He/she winds up in the exact same situation that I did (excluding being there with their family, but even so, things can happen). The perv finds this unsupervised little girl and easily befriends her. He surveys the surroundings. There are thick bushes & trees that border the playground. His car can’t be seen clearly from the ball diamond. Even if somebody saw him take the kid they wouldn’t be able to clearly ID him. He’d easily get away unless one of the parents just happened to see him and realized it was their kid he had.

So, he befriends her and gains her trust, that’s pretty easy for a 3 year old. He lures her toward the parking lot side of the playground. That’s easy because it’s near the swing sets. Then he makes his move and grabs the kid and holds a hand over her mouth and runs.

Now one of two things happens-

The crumb drags the girl into the thick bushes and molests her (or)

He stuffs her in his car and drives away.

½ hour to an hour later the parents figure out their kid is missing. Did the kid wander off? Did the kid get kidnapped? What did the kidnapper look like? What did his/her vehicle look like? NOBODY FREAKIN’ KNOWS!! Then the police are called and have absolutely nothing to start with. Do we start looking in the nearby area or do we start setting up roadblocks? Even with roadblocks the odds are around here, by that time the perp could be 20 miles away w/o breaking a sweat. Nobody knows what the vehicle looks like and we can’t stop every vehicle we see. Heck, nobody knows if she’s even been abducted.

And of course, if the above situation did happen, it’s guaranteed that the police aren’t doing enough to get their precious child back.

Some parents….aarrgghh.

Watch your kids like hawks. If somebody tries to abduct my daughter while in my care I’m going to know about it because I will be in the immediate area and the "would be" abductor gets loaded up with .45 Hydrashoks. He won’t get the chance to go to jail for a year or two and then get out and molest or harm somebody else’s kid. No sir.

I’ll protect my little girl any way that I need to.

Be responsible parents, raising & protecting your kids is YOUR responsibility, not everybody elses.

Jaden