OT - disturbed about unattended children
Find a Conversation
OT - disturbed about unattended children
| Sun, 04-11-2004 - 12:38pm |
This bothered me so much that I had to "share"! Still wondering if I should have "done" something. I took my daughter Kiana (5 years old) to the park last night at around 7:30. This particular playground is several blocks from my house, and is set in the middle of a "close", so there are houses surrounding it on three sides, but it is really quite large, and treed. Anyway, there was a little girl there all by herself, who had just turned 4. She was extremely trusting (she certainly answered all the questions that I asked her!) so I found out that she lives in a house on the West side of the park, and that no one was with her, and that she comes to the park "all the time" by herself, and she just has to go home when it starts to get dark. At one point, she spotted a friend of hers and raced across the road on the EAST side of the park, and disappeared for a little while into the girl's back yard. I saw the mom of the little girl escort her to the sidewalk and send her back across the street. We were there for about 45 minutes and we saw NO-ONE come looking for this kid. One pre-teen boy came into the park and called her by name to say hello. I asked him if he was her brother and he said "no, she's here a lot". Honestly, it would have been so easy for someone to walk off with this child- and I was, quite frankly, scared to go home and leave her all alone. Finally, after about 45 minutes and it WAS starting to get dark, I heard a voice yelling "Jordan! Time for supper!" and she took off running. I saw the house she went into and briefly considered going over to speak to the mother, but I really don't believe it would make any difference, and she'd probalby just become angry and defensive. You see lots of little kids in my town just wandering around like that at all hours - I think people feel that it must be "safe" because we have a town of "only" 5,000, but it scares the HELL out of me! I don't even let my 11 year old go to the park unless she has a friend with her, and not that late in the evening.

Pages
I dont blame you.
I think I would make a phone call if I were in that situation.
"Code Adam" is a "missing child" security protocol in place in various chain stores. It's an industry's attempt to prevent a tragedy (whether it be a kidnapped child or one who had wandered away). As such, it's real.
"Whether or not young Adam Walsh (the lad the Code is named for) was kidnapped out of the store he was last seen in is still unknown -- it appears even more likely that he'd gone outside to the parking lot by himself and met his killer there. It is therefore a mistake to assert with any degree of authority that "Code Adam" was named for a child who was abducted from a store. (It's natural though to confuse this boy's death with the apocryphal story of an attempted kidnapping from a large store in which the child is drugged, his clothes are changed, and his hair cut and dyed, because that tale has been kicking around forever. One has to but hear 'child,' 'abduction' and 'store' to bring that well-traveled urban legend immediately to mind. Those interested in reading up on that legend should visit the kidnappings page.)
. . .
"'Code Adam' was named for Adam Walsh., who was abducted from the Sears store in Hollywood, Florida, on 27 July 1981. His mother left him in the video games section for what she later said was five or seven minutes while she went to a different part of the store to buy a lamp. There are some reports that Adam was ordered out of Sears by store security as he and some others were making a disturbance and that his abductor encountered him outside the store.
"Only the child's head has ever been recovered, no other body part. I don't believe the site of the child's murder has ever been determined. . . ."
My Mother use to let me go to the park alone when I was 5,until she watched me hop into the back of a van with some young couple that was there.She said she never screamed my name so loud and thanked god I got back out and ran home.Even though she thought she taught me all I could know about strangers,I still broke all her rules,because to me,the couple were friendly enough.
It's a scary world.I still don't allow my 10 year old out of my site in a store,and I always make sure he calls me when he is going to a friends house.
Frankly, a four year old is just too young to be playing in a park unsupervised. There's not just the risk of abduction, but also from injuries that can occur on playground equipment, running out in front of traffic, etc. I don't know what to suggest about CPS; you might want to call them the next time you find the girl in the park alone, but I can almost guarantee there's no way the girl would be removed from her home. Good luck whatever you decide to do.
Pages