Good Samaritan in US beaten, forced to leave town after being mistaken for kidnapper - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE]A Florida man had to leave town after helping a little girl who got lost at a sports stadium. The two-year-old girl's parents have insisted that the man was trying to kidnap their child despite denials from him and the police. The Lakeland police department said that the toddler became separated from her parents at Southwest Sports Complex on Saturday (June 24). The man, who was not named by the police, walked with her hoping to help her identify her parents, the police department said in a statement on its Facebook page. "At least one independent witness stated they observed the citizen walking with the child trying to help find her parents," the post said. The parents were told that the man was walking towards a playground with their child and feared that he was trying to kidnap her. Sergeant Gary Gross of the Lakeland Police Department told CNN that the girl's father and his friends attacked the man. "They grabbed that child and took him (the man) from behind and knocked him to the ground and started kicking and hitting him," Gross said. "It's understandable how parents can possibly be upset in a situation involving a lost child," the police statement said. "However, this incident truly involved a Good Samaritan trying to assist a lost child finding their parents." Mr Gross said that the man who was attacked has signed a waiver of prosecution against the father as he is also a father and could understand how the parent felt. But the father of the girl has refused to believe that the man was not trying to kidnap his child. "So I guess in Lakeland, you can kidnap a child and get away with it," he told police, according to the CNN report. The family then shared the man's personal details, his photo and the photo of his children on Facebook, accusing him of being a sexual predator and trying to take their girl. Posts on Facebook called on people to band together to run him out of town. The man and his family left town of their own accord after receiving threats and fearing for their safety, CNN said. [/QUOTE] [url]http://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/good-samaritan-in-us-beaten-forced-to-leave-town-after-being-mistaken-for?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&xtor=CS1-10#link_time=1498700020[/url] [editline]29th June 2017[/editline] Wtf is wrong with the father

A shame he agreed not to file charges. This kind of kneejerk bullshit is why nobody bothers to help people anymore.

Sounds like the father would rather support the false narrative than acknowledge he fucked up. Shit like this is why I don't even attempt to talk to children if I find them crying in an aisle in a grocery store, I just point it out to a passing supermarket staff person who is also a woman and let them deal with it. Why? Because I get less accusations that way. Over here in India, it's usually pretty normal to interact with children in the compound and the thought of someone kidnapping your kid when you find them speaking to someone you don't know is, like, the furthest thing from my mind. Hell, sometimes I've played catch with some kids in my apartment complex or gone to help some kids get a ball unstuck from a tree and it's never been a problem. In the US, on the other hand, I made the criminal mistake of taking my niece to the communal play area and while I sat there watching them (I was waiting for my sister to come back from work) I was approached by no less than 5 "concerned parents" grilling me as to why I was there and where their mom was. Same thing goes when I took my youngest niece to a supermarket and had supermarket staff ask my niece if she knew who I was and where her mommy was. What in the actual fuck. :unimpressed:

That family should face legal repercussions for this shit, what the fuck?

"there's no sexism against men"

That's really fucked up. Can we not transition into a period of mob mentality vigilantism. [editline]pretty[/editline] please

Imagine how the father would feel if good Samaritans mind their own business and let the kid run off and get hurt or worse actually kidnapped. Pretty fucking disgusting behavior on the parents - you lost your kid, then accused the guy who was clearly bringing back the kid of being a kidnapper, beating his ass without any real evidence, then getting people to band together to run him and his family out of town. That alone just says how much of a shitty person you are.

[QUOTE=Thaggers;52412528]A shame he agreed not to file charges. This kind of kneejerk bullshit is why nobody bothers to help people anymore.[/QUOTE] It's literally the moral of the story if nothing else changes.

[QUOTE=snookypookums;52412537] In the US, on the other hand, I made the criminal mistake of taking my niece to the communal play area and while I sat there watching them (I was waiting for my sister to come back from work) I was approached by no less than 5 "concerned parents" grilling me as to why I was there and where their mom was. Same thing goes when I took my youngest niece to a supermarket and had supermarket staff ask my niece if she knew who I was and where her mommy was. [/QUOTE] I'm an American and I have to ask, why is this the norm here in the states? Why is this and the situation in the article so prevalent?

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;52412746]I'm an American and I have to ask, why is this the norm here in the states? Why is this and the situation in the article so prevalent?[/QUOTE] Well I mean obviously the only thing a man can possibly do with a child is molest it. [editline]28th June 2017[/editline] Or abandon it

[quote]The family then shared the man's personal details, his photo and the photo of his children on Facebook, accusing him of being a sexual predator and trying to take their girl. Posts on Facebook called on people to band together to run him out of town.[/quote] This alone sounds like the kind of thing you could take to a judge and get a nice payout. You would have a hard time finding someone who wouldn't side with him.

[QUOTE=J Paul;52412760]Well I mean obviously the only thing a man can possibly do with a child is molest it. [editline]28th June 2017[/editline] Or abandon it[/QUOTE] By why is that thinking so widespread and accepted? What happened to make people think only men do this or that women are incapable even when it seems both sexes seem pretty capable of terrible things a la "high school teacher found having sex with her students"?

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;52412746]I'm an American and I have to ask, why is this the norm here in the states? Why is this and the situation in the article so prevalent?[/QUOTE] Because shit like "stranger danger" and the media's hyper sensationalism of child kidnapping incidents have been etched into our brains since we and our parents were kids.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;52412746]I'm an American and I have to ask, why is this the norm here in the states? Why is this and the situation in the article so prevalent?[/QUOTE] I'm sure it's a combination of factors as nothing is ever simple, but I'd attribute a significant amount of responsibility on media sensationalism. Despite it being a verifiable fact that children and people in general are safer than they have ever been, constant 24hr media coverage about all the horrors in the world makes people think that the chances of something going wrong with their child is much higher than it actually is. Combine that with some prevailing negative stereotypes regarding men and children as well as outdated gender norms that attribute women as being more responsible and safer with kids...and well, this is what you get.

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;52412776]By why is that thinking so widespread and accepted? What happened to make people think only men do this or that women are incapable even when it seems both sexes seem pretty capable of terrible things a la "high school teacher found having sex with her students"?[/QUOTE] Honestly you don't even have to reach that far for examples of bad female-child relationships, you need only look to the 'devouring mother' situation that typically occurs in single parent situations where the mother coddles the child into basically never growing up or at least growing up in such a way as to be completely and utterly unprepared for society. And of course, having a father in the picture doesn't guarantee this won't happen, but it certainly makes it easier to avoid. So now we live in a society where a stable marriage and the resulting two parent households aren't "the norm" anymore, in fact encouraging hetero-normative intact marriages is actually seen as a bad thing now because you don't want to exclude people by suggesting there might actually be a better way to do things, and thus we as a society have had to give ultimate responsibility to one of the genders, since they can't and often don't want to share it, and for some reason in western society we've picked the woman for that. Even though they're just as good at abuse and neglect, in fact in some ways far worse because the types of abuse they commit aren't often as immediately apparent as the type of abuse that a man could commit. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the bond between a mother and child is sometimes deeper, I dunno, but at the same time there are also women with postpartum depression that don't love or want to be around their kids at all, so even that's not a universal rule. But we treat it like it is. So yeah then it's natural for people to assume, in that context, that any man who wants to have anything to do with kids is sick in the head, because men are supposed to abandon or rape, not care and nurture. It's really just the media putting people against each other for reasons that aren't even remotely real. [editline]28th June 2017[/editline] I mean just look at the behavior of the child's father in this situation. Maybe I'm seeing it wrong but it seems to me like his entire knee-jerk reaction is based on him probably not wanting to be seen as a negligent father - something that is now seen as the norm. Which he absolutely is, if a 2 year old got away from him. But then that speaks to how demonized men are in our culture in relation to children, the guy can't even let another guy help him out because it shows how bad of a father he is, the only solution is to accuse the other man of a crime and to beat him up to appear to save the day or be a hero or maybe even a hapless victim.

There's some underlying cultural [I]thing[/I] in western countries where vigilante justice is suddenly okay if paedophiles are involved. You don't need evidence, either. Only a [I]sneaking suspicion.[/I] I get that we're hard wired to be ultra protective of our kids and child molestation is one of the most horrific crimes there is but we're reached the point where people who haven't actually [I]done[/I] it can have their lives ruined via accusations alone, whether or not there's anything to support the claims. It's nuts.

It is a tragic thing that has happened to the man (and his family as well). But, reading this story, it does not faze me from acting when there's a need. I refuse to let fear of consequences, let alone unreasonable consequences, from stopping me from doing what is right. And frankly, I hope you people would feel the same. It's understandable that instances like these would make some of you hesitant to do the right thing. But if you ask me, virtue is its own reward. You have done the right thing and no one else can frankly take that from you.

[QUOTE=PsycheClops;52412904]And frankly, I hope you people would feel the same. It's understandable that instances like these would make some of you hesitant to do the right thing. But if you ask me, virtue is its own reward. You have done the right thing and no one else can frankly take that from you.[/QUOTE] I'd be inclined to agree with you [I]if[/I] there was framework designed to protect good samaritans in place for situations exactly like these. [URL="http://shanghaiist.com/2016/11/02/shanghai_good_samaritan_law.php"]This is the reason why good samaritanism as a concept never took off in countries like China[/URL] - if you volunteered to go help someone who met with an accident, that person would then look to [I]you[/I] for compensation as you were the only one to acknowledge what happened to them. In a case of "he said, she said" it's almost always going to be the victim that gets the bias and in this case the samaritan is the one that gets held accountable through no fault of their own.

Vigilante Justice is probably one of the worst thing to happen in social media. Alway see people post and share "criminals" and for some reason only have the poster's contact number instead of the local police.

You can barely even interact with a child in public as a man in the US. I've gotten nasty looks from parents from literally responding to a kid in a cart repeatedly saying "Hey! HI!" at me, and simply responding with a smile and a hello as I walk by. It's ridiculous. It's not always the case, but it is so often the case that you're best to play it safe and simply ignore children like they don't exist in public.

[QUOTE=snookypookums;52412537]Sounds like the father would rather support the false narrative than acknowledge he fucked up. Shit like this is why I don't even attempt to talk to children if I find them crying in an aisle in a grocery store, I just point it out to a passing supermarket staff person who is also a woman and let them deal with it. Why? Because I get less accusations that way. Over here in India, it's usually pretty normal to interact with children in the compound and the thought of someone kidnapping your kid when you find them speaking to someone you don't know is, like, the furthest thing from my mind. Hell, sometimes I've played catch with some kids in my apartment complex or gone to help some kids get a ball unstuck from a tree and it's never been a problem. In the US, on the other hand, I made the criminal mistake of taking my niece to the communal play area and while I sat there watching them (I was waiting for my sister to come back from work) I was approached by no less than 5 "concerned parents" grilling me as to why I was there and where their mom was. Same thing goes when I took my youngest niece to a supermarket and had supermarket staff ask my niece if she knew who I was and where her mommy was. What in the actual fuck. :unimpressed:[/QUOTE] What the fuck is this actually real?

[QUOTE=jiggu;52413290]What the fuck is this actually real?[/QUOTE] Unfortunately so - turns out my brother-in-law also had similar problems taking the kids to the neighborhood swimming pool, too. I could at least understand in my case because neither of the two have any resemblance to me, but this shit happens. My sister ended up raising a stink about it during a neighborhood watch committee (as she told it to me after I left) and shortly after, that incident with the Indian grandfather getting bodyslammed into the pavement happened, so unfortunately, even then the real takeaway from the committee was "If they're brown and you can identify what a desi person looks like, leave them the fuck alone they'll handle themselves." By contrast, here in India we're just taught as kids that interacting with adults is okay, as long as they don't touch you in a way that you feel is uncomfortable or painful or they try to give you something to eat/drink that you haven't asked for. Oddly, after getting grilled by these random strangers when I was entrusted to keep my nieces safe at the playarea, I was the one left feeling unsafe and unwelcome. I never did it again, except when my sister was also present and we could chat while they played - it felt really weird and kinda colored my interaction with children when I came back to India after the vacation too. :frown:

[QUOTE=snookypookums;52413340]Unfortunately so - turns out my brother-in-law also had similar problems taking the kids to the neighborhood swimming pool, too. I could at least understand in my case because neither of the two have any resemblance to me, but this shit happens. My sister ended up raising a stink about it during a neighborhood watch committee (as she told it to me after I left) and shortly after, that incident with the Indian grandfather getting bodyslammed into the pavement happened, so unfortunately, even then the real takeaway from the committee was "If they're brown and you can identify what a desi person looks like, leave them the fuck alone they'll handle themselves." By contrast, here in India we're just taught as kids that interacting with adults is okay, as long as they don't touch you in a way that you feel is uncomfortable or painful or they try to give you something to eat/drink that you haven't asked for. Oddly, after getting grilled by these random strangers when I was entrusted to keep my nieces safe at the playarea, I was the one left feeling unsafe and unwelcome. I never did it again, except when my sister was also present and we could chat while they played - it felt really weird and kinda colored my interaction with children when I came back to India after the vacation too. :frown:[/QUOTE] That's disturbing and I feel awful that you had to experience that shit. Here in Sweden I've never heard of such a case(not saying it would never happen, but very rarely). We usually tell kids not to follow strangers and not take candy or other gifts, but that's it really. Never had any pedo scare as far as I know.

There need to be a balance, its okay to watch the kids, but don't do it too excessively. Also, at the same time, too many parents let kids run about on their own without supervision, especially asian parents. Its fine if they do go running out into the roads, but it annoys the fuck out of me especially when they are running and noisy af on public transport and the parents can't give two shits

Just to add a bit of my side too: Once I was playing with kids of my cousin. Then when she suspected that I am gay (I am not gay, I am bi fyi), she said "Oh my god, you are playing with my kids :(". Like what the actual fuck, what a retard.

[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;52412663]"there's no sexism against men"[/QUOTE] While of course there is sexism against men, is this really a good point to bring up when it was the father who assaulted him and accused him of being a sexual predator?

[QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;52413769]While of course there is sexism against men, is this really a good point to bring up when it was the father who assaulted him and accused him of being a sexual predator?[/QUOTE] Apparently it was the family, mother included.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;52413773]Apparently it was the family, mother included.[/QUOTE] I must've misunderstood then. I was given the depression that this started with the father. [quote]Sergeant Gary Gross of the Lakeland Police Department told CNN that the girl's father and his friends attacked the man.[/quote] Given how the father is absolutely batshit fucking insane, I'm more inclined to believe that this is less a case about him being batshit fucking insane.

[QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;52413769]While of course there is sexism against men, is this really a good point to bring up when it was the father who assaulted him and accused him of being a sexual predator?[/QUOTE] Internalized sexism? Just because he's a man doesn't mean he doesnt live in a society that somehow managed to paint men as unwelcome around children.

No good deed goes unpunished.