Close Call

There are some things I'll write about for the paper, and some things I won't. The good thing about this blog is that I can say WHATEVER I WANT, and I don't have to worry about accusations of slander or libel, or journalistic integrity. I can even curse if I want to.

This week, I submitted an article to the paper that I have already posted on this blog. Since that would mean "no new blog for at least another week and a half" according to my publish-then-post plan, I wanted to write about something that has come up in conversation over the past week, that I don't plan on publishing in the paper.

A few years ago, while we were living in Timberlea, we had an "incident" take place. I hesitate to call it an attempted abduction, but you can decide for yourselves.

Nick has always been pretty street smart - maybe a little paranoid even. He's suspicious of every adult he sees, and even goes as far as to tell me from time to time that "there was this creepy guy who was looking at me in the car while you were in the store, so I locked the doors." We've spoken to him countless times about "stranger danger", especially considering we lived in the city for awhile.

Nick was 8, and he was only allowed to play on our street. This usually suited him just fine, since most of his friends lived a few houses away and they, too, were not allowed to leave the street. This way, your kid was always somewhere that was visible to either Mom & Dad, or one of their adult neighbors. We usually didn't worry too much, even when he wasn't right in front of our house.

We lived in a very quiet subdivision, on probably the quietest street in that subdivision. Our street wasn't a main thoroughfare. In a nutshell, unless you were driving onto Wedgewood Avenue to visit someone who lived there, there wasn't much traffic, since it wasn't a main road.

One day we were on our way into Bayer's Lake, myself, Joey & Rory. Nick was already playing up the street, so we were getting our things together and planned to flag him down once we got outside.
We got down to the car, and one of our neighbors approached us, with her hand on Nick's shoulder. He looked upset, and my first thought was that he had gotten in trouble for something. She launched into a story that made the hair on my neck stand up.
This neighbor (we'll call her Judy) had been weeding her garden behind a hedge right across the street from our house. Her position in the garden kept her hidden from traffic on the road, even though she was mere feet from it. She told us she had seen Nick walking toward home from up the street, when a vehicle approached him and stopped right in front of him. Being a mother to a young boy herself, she wanted to make sure this was someone Nick knew, so she listened in.
She said she knew right away that something was wrong. The car, a burgundy Rav-4 type vehicle, was occupied by two women. The driver was in her mid-40s, and the passenger was a few years younger, by Judy's estimation. They started asking Nick all sorts of questions, such as where he lived, if his parents were home, and if they expected him home soon. Seeing women in the car must not have triggered any alarm for Nick, as I imagine he thought of "strangers" as men, and he began talking back to them.
Judy said the questions were giving her cause for suspicion, and when she heard, "Do you need a ride....", she stood up, making herself clearly visible to the women in the car, and asking Nick if everything was OK. Judy said the woman tramped on the gas, quealing the tires as they took off. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to memorize the license plate number.

Needless to say, her recounting of this story made us panic, and we immediately called the police. We gave them a vehicle discription, including color and assumed make & model, a description of the women, including ages and appearance, and we told them what Judy had witnessed and heard. They told us they would look into it and call us back.
After a few hours, we received a call back from the RCMP. They told us they had run the plate number, which was registered to a burgundy Rav-4. It belonged to a woman who lived in another Timberlea subdivision not far from ours. They had gone to her house, and they told us the woman matched the description we had given them. So far, so good. "She said she wasn't on your street at all today, she had no idea what we were talking about," the cop told us. We thought that was pretty funny. Caught in the act, and denying everything. Are the police ever going to lay it on her, we thought. But then it all went downhill. "So I the matter won't go any further, she said she wasn't even there." Those were the next words out of the cop's mouth. What? What do you mean? She said she wasn't there, but we all know she was! We had her license plate number! We were incredulous.

Let me break it down for you, as I did VERY CRANKILY to the unlucky RCMP officer who was handed this matter.
A woman approaches a strange young boy on the street in her car, something I would never do for fear of scaring the kid or alarming the neighbors. She starts asking him inappropriate questions. She comes within one syllable of offering him a ride, when he had just told her his house was right up the street. A reliable adult witnessed the entire exchange. At the first sight of this adult, the woman speeds off in her car. If her intentions were pure, assuming she needed directions or something, she would have acknowledged the adult with a positive reaction. When this woman is found by police, even though her, her vehicle, and her license plate match the descriptions given by an adult witness, she denies even being in the area.
And the cops just take her word for it and move on? I DON'T THINK SO.

I almost feel sorry for that officer who had to deal with me over the coming days and weeks. I did so much yelling and screaming and arguing and fussing and reasoning and explaning, that I thought I would lose my mind. I didn't get any kind of rational response. I even called the staff sergeant to complain and to have someone different put on the case. I was told that it wasn't even a case; it was a complaint that had been dealt with and resolved.

Oh really? Well, what was the resolution? This was the explanation I was given.
Because the police hadn't witnessed this occur, it was our word against hers.
Because our neighbor hadn't written down the license plate number, there was room for error. The chance existed that another woman meeting her description was in our neighborhood, driving an identical burgundy Rav-4, bearing a license plate just one number or letter off from the one Judy remembered. (WTF is this, "My Cousin Vinny"???) After all, she said it wasn't her. And they have no reason to believe she's lying. (Really? None???)
Because she hadn't committed a crime, there wasn't anything the police could or would do about the situation anyway, even if she WAS lying and she DID attempt to take our son. There's no crime in an adult approaching a child in their vehicle and asking the child if they want a ride to their house (which was about 300 feet away).

Now, would you be satisfied with that explanation?

I WAS NOT.

So I gave the police this analogy.

What if a guy walked into a bank wearing a ski mask. He walked up to the teller and started asking her how much money was in the safe, how many security guards were on duty, and then said "put your hands..." - only then to be interrupted by a security guard asking what was going on. The man runs away, and hops into his car, but not before the security guard makes mental note of his license plate. The cops are called and given a description of man, the vehicle, the plate number, and the details of his suspicious visit. But when the cops visit the suspect's house, he denies being anywhere near the bank, even though the plate number matched, as did the description of the car, the description of him, and his house was a block from the bank. Do you think that cops would just say, "Oh, ok....must have been a mistake." NO, THEY WOULDN'T. THEY'D ARREST HIM UNDER SUSPICION OF ATTEMPTED ROBBERY.

But how is my situation any different? Sure, she may not have snatched my child from off the street, but what would have happened if Judy hadn't been there? Why did she stop to talk to Nick in the first place? Why did she panic and bolt when she saw an adult? And if her intentions weren't evil, WHY DID SHE DENY THE WHOLE THING? If I had caused a scare like this to some poor child and his family, I would fess up immediately and apologize. ONLY IF I WERE TRYING TO HIDE SOMETHING WOULD I HAVE THE GALL TO LIE TO THE POLICE, KNOWING THE WHOLE THING HAD BEEN WITNESSED.

I was so mad, SOOOOOOO MAD, that I didn't know what to do with myself. Then, as luck would have it, one cop I spoke to accidently let it slip what subdivision this woman lived in. BINGO! Perfect, I thought. I drove around that subdivision until I found the car. If the cops won't do anything about it, I will, I had decided. I'll go to her house, pound the shit out of her, threaten to kill her if I ever see her on my street again, and then leave. When the cops come asking me about it, I'll just say it wasn't me, tit for tat.
As luck would have it, I have people around me who can be more sensible than myself in the face of chaos and anger. After much discussion, Joey convinced me that beating this women to within an inch of her life probably wasn't such a good idea, and it certainly wouldn't help matters any.
(G: Yes it would Joey, she wouldn't be physically able to drive, AND I'd scare her so bad she'd be too paranoid to pull a stunt like this again.
J: Gina.
G: But Joey she deserves something, she can't just get away with it!
J: Gina.
G: You can't stop me, I'm going to do it whether you want me to or not!
J: Gina!
G: But it would make me feel so much better!
J: Gina, come on......
You get the point.)

All Joey's convincing still didn't stop me from driving by her house 600 times, waiting for her to walk out so I could "accidentally" speed up and run her ass over.

Anyway, you get the point. I was pissed and scared, but mostly pissed, at her and at the cops. We moved from Timberlea shortly after that.

What do you think? Does this sound a little fishy to you? I often wonder if it's just the ovverreation of a paranoid mother. But usually I just consider it an injustice.