PHL:Attempted Abduction of 10-Year-Old Girl Caught

[teflep]

This is so scary to even watch.

A 10-year-old girl and her 2-year-old brother were walking back from buying sweets in South Philadelphia when a man suddenly came from behind and tried to make off with the terrified girl.
He placed his hand over her mouth lifted her from the ground and, as the girl's brother screamed, the man stumbled as he tried to drag the girl towards his car. After struggling for a brief period, the man eventually gave up and fled the scene.

The attempted abduction in South Philadelphia Tuesday was caught on video and now detectives from the Special Victims Unit are using it to hunt down the would be kidnapper.



The Philadelphia Police Department has been a pioneer in the use of YouTube and social media, including Twitter and Facebook, to help solve crimes. Their Facebook page has more hits than any law enforcement page except the FBI page. Since last February they have used the wide distribution of video and social media to catch 87 suspects, including alleged murderers and rapists.

Two unrelated murder cases were solved by surveillance tape from one corner store. In one case, the suspect's own mother turned him in after seeing her son one on tape. In the other, a rape and murder was solved when a neighbor recognized the man who was following the victim.

When Bas Slabbers was attacked on a city bus in late May, no one on the bus would assist him or call 911. After police released video of the attack via social media, however, they got several tips about the identity of the attacker and made an arrest. Witnesses apparently didn't want to risk getting involved while the crime was occurring on the bus, but were willing to identify the attacker electronically.

news.yahoo.com/attempted-abduction-10-old-girl-caught-tape-164635259--abc-news-topstories.html

[redheadbaker]

In broad daylight, too. I hope he's caught soon.

[charminglife]

that's really scary.

Its great that philly's been able to use social media tools to get information out to the public and catch criminals. I wonder if other cities are taking notice. I actually follow the Baltimore police dept. on twitter and its an interesting mix of reported shootings, handgun arrests and city crime fast facts.

[penguingrrl]

I saw that on the news this morning. So scary and awful . Thank god the brother screamed!

[brit1017]

Jul 19, 2012 8:11:39 GMT -5 charminglife said:

that's really scary.

Its great that philly's been able to use social media tools to get information out to the public and catch criminals. I wonder if other cities are taking notice. I actually follow the Baltimore police dept. on twitter and its an interesting mix of reported shootings, handgun arrests and city crime fast facts.

I know that NYC has a social media division as well that was created last year.

This story is so scary. I really hope that this guy is caught quickly.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

A 10 y.o and a 2 y.o. were walking down the street alone? Oy. Glad they caught him.

[texassmith]

Jul 19, 2012 9:42:20 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

A 10 y.o and a 2 y.o. were walking down the street alone? Oy. Glad they caught him.

Yeah, it definitely wasn't a good situation in the first place. The local news was reporting that the girl bit the guy twice, which is why he kept bobbling her and finally just ran off.

[wawa]

Jul 19, 2012 9:42:20 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

A 10 y.o and a 2 y.o. were walking down the street alone? Oy. Glad they caught him.

Is 10 not old enough to be trusted with her little brother to walk down the block?

I'm actually asking here. This is one of those future parenting questions that totally stumps me.

[redheadbaker]

A "person of interest" is in custody.

abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8740002

[twotrue]

And now I'm crying. :-( What a scary, scary thing.

[taratru]

I never thought twice about sending my 10 year old alone down the street and sending her (would have been) 4 year old sister with her.

Of course, seeing that, I want to lock them all up in the house.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

Jul 19, 2012 9:50:26 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 19, 2012 9:42:20 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

A 10 y.o and a 2 y.o. were walking down the street alone? Oy. Glad they caught him.

Is 10 not old enough to be trusted with her little brother to walk down the block?

I'm actually asking here. This is one of those future parenting questions that totally stumps me.

Some 10 y.o.s might be mature enough to walk alone (thought it still feels young to me), but I don't think they should be entrusted with the little one.

ETA: Err yeah, what sbp said.

[texassmith]

I would not let a 10 y/o old out alone, especially not in a big city. Especially not when that big city is Philly. I sure as hell wouldn't let them out with a 2 y/o.

I also forgot to mention that she learned to bite her attacker from watching Law and Order SVU. I haven't really watched much of that show, but I think it might be a little intense for a 10 y/o? So there may be overall some questionable parenting here.

All that aside, thank goodness both those kids are ok.

[taratru]

I agree, sbp. Our neighborhood/town is pretty damn safe with little traffic, so not a lot to worry *about*. I don't know about Chicago. I remember being 9, staying the summer in Boston with my aunt and me and my cousins running ALL over the city, taking the T everywhere we wanted to go. My sister was 5, my two cousins 10 and 12, I think? We'd all go and clearly *they* had been doing that for years.

[statlerwaldorf]

Our old town was pretty safe too until some guy in a truck started trying to abduct young girls on their way home from school...

[pixy0stix]

I want to cry. This scares me to the core.

That little girl was so so brave in fighting her attacker and biting him. You can tell she just started fighting the minute she was grabbed. (I did do a little giggle at her learning to do it from SVU)

[penguingrrl]

Jul 19, 2012 9:50:26 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 19, 2012 9:42:20 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

A 10 y.o and a 2 y.o. were walking down the street alone? Oy. Glad they caught him.

Is 10 not old enough to be trusted with her little brother to walk down the block?

I'm actually asking here. This is one of those future parenting questions that totally stumps me.

Depends on the kid and the setting. I envision allowing my nearly 5 year old to walk places alone at 10. She's very mature for her age and good at following directions, so I would imagine I'll be able to trust her for those things at 10. But we are now in suburbia. When we were in NYC I was aghast when I saw kids younger than HS walking alone because it's a huge city and made me nervous. Even most of my neighbors with older kids (and one who had grown up on the block and never moved... love Harlem for that) didn't allow 13-14 year olds to walk places alone.

[SusanBAnthony]

Jul 19, 2012 9:50:26 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 19, 2012 9:42:20 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

A 10 y.o and a 2 y.o. were walking down the street alone? Oy. Glad they caught him.

Is 10 not old enough to be trusted with her little brother to walk down the block?

I'm actually asking here. This is one of those future parenting questions that totally stumps me.

IMO it is fine as long as it didn't involve crossing busy streets, and they were going somewhere specific where an adult would know if something went wrong (like to a neighbors house and the parent had called ahead to let them know they were coming).

It totally depends on the 2 year old, too. But I would feel comfortable, at ages 4.5 and 2.5, sending my kids holding hands down the block in sight the whole way to a neighbor's house. So I imagine when Ds is 10 I would trust him to go around the block with a 2 year old.

[NitaX]

This breaks my heart. I was just telling T the other night that she needs to keep up with me when we are out shopping and stay in my line of sight. Then I told her if anyone ever tried to grab her she needed to scream, kick, punch and bite as much as possible to get the attacker off of her.

[redheadbaker]

Jul 19, 2012 10:05:42 GMT -5 texassmith said:

I also forgot to mention that she learned to bite her attacker from watching Law and Order SVU. I haven't really watched much of that show, but I think it might be a little intense for a 10 y/o? So there may be overall some questionable parenting here.

In the link I posted, the mom said the dad showed her YouTube videos called "Stranger Danger" to teach her what to do if someone attempts to abduct her.

[redheadbaker]

None of the news articles say how far the kids were walking. It's also South Philly, where more often than not, neighbors all know each other and sit on their stoops every night. I'm not going to jump to judgment of the parents.

[texassmith]

Jul 19, 2012 10:23:00 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

Jul 19, 2012 10:05:42 GMT -5 texassmith said:

I also forgot to mention that she learned to bite her attacker from watching Law and Order SVU. I haven't really watched much of that show, but I think it might be a little intense for a 10 y/o? So there may be overall some questionable parenting here.

In the link I posted, the mom said the dad showed her YouTube videos called "Stranger Danger" to teach her what to do if someone attempts to abduct her.

Oh. I didn't open your link, I was just mentioning what I heard on the news this morning.

I'm not saying they are shittastic parents or anything, I just raised my eyebrow a bit.

[wawa]

Jul 19, 2012 10:27:54 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

None of the news articles say how far the kids were walking. It's also South Philly, where more often than not, neighbors all know each other and sit on their stoops every night. I'm not going to jump to judgment of the parents.

yeah, my mom lives in south philly. She knows the names of every kid on her block. There are crappier areas, but the residential streets I've walked around (and I've done that a lot since we usually have the dog when we visit) don't feel unsafe to me at all in the daylight.

Night time is different. they do get a lot of petty vandalism, car break ins. Stuff like that. But broad daylight? It's fine.

[redheadbaker]

Jul 19, 2012 10:33:55 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 19, 2012 10:27:54 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

None of the news articles say how far the kids were walking. It's also South Philly, where more often than not, neighbors all know each other and sit on their stoops every night. I'm not going to jump to judgment of the parents.

yeah, my mom lives in south philly. She knows the names of every kid on her block. There are crappier areas, but the residential streets I've walked around (and I've done that a lot since we usually have the dog when we visit) don't feel unsafe to me at all in the daylight.

Night time is different. they do get a lot of petty vandalism, car break ins. Stuff like that. But broad daylight? It's fine.

Yeah, S.O.'s grandmother lives down there, too. She needs a little help getting around and doing stuff, but gets so much help from all of her neighbors. They do her grocery shopping, shovel her sidewalk, etc. She refers to the kids on her block as her "other grandkids."

[jaylea]

Jul 19, 2012 10:23:00 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

Jul 19, 2012 10:05:42 GMT -5 texassmith said:

I also forgot to mention that she learned to bite her attacker from watching Law and Order SVU. I haven't really watched much of that show, but I think it might be a little intense for a 10 y/o? So there may be overall some questionable parenting here.

In the link I posted, the mom said the dad showed her YouTube videos called "Stranger Danger" to teach her what to do if someone attempts to abduct her.

So, am I the only one thinking I'm going to do this with DD soon? Because I think it's time for a lesson!

This video has scared the crap out of me. So brazen.