Readers, you will be SHOCKED to learn that the driver of the car that was “caught on tape” practically abducting a child (or so the media told us) was actually on a nefarious mission to … buy boat parts! So says this Sheriff’s Report, send to us by Mike Smith:
Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office Locates Suspect Vehicle – 04/07/14
The Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office reports the suspicious vehicle and driver reported on Ballston Road outside of Sheridan has been identified.
The vehicle and driver of the suspicious vehicle reported to the Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office on Monday, March 31st has been located and is of no further interest. The Sheriff’s Office would like to thank everyone for their concern and assistance in locating the suspicious vehicle.
Family members located the vehicle at a McMinnville business on Saturday afternoon, April 5th. The driver and owner of the vehicle was cooperative with Sheriff’s Deputies, and stated he had driven to the Sheridan area to look for and purchase boat parts and became lost while looking for the business. Sheriff’s Deputies were able to confirm the driver and his dog had been to the area on the day of the reported incident looking for the boat shop, and ultimately made a purchase there.
And to refresh your memory, here’s the original story…caught on tape!
40 Comments
I’d like to apologize for all of Oregon for this. Usually we aren’t that stupid. We have been having a lot of people moving in from other states, so maybe that is the problem.
Whew! I feel so much safer now.
I’m glad they reported the follow-up, so people will (hopefully) realize that they should beware of overreacting to non-incidents.
Did they ever find out WHY he looked at the girl? I mean, isn’t that illegal yet?
The Onion is doing videos now?
The takeaway to me is that “the news” decided this was news. If a little girl was worried or confused, it’s perfectly fine for her parents to review this situation and discuss it. It was never news to begin with.
I knew it! I often stop for a second in residential areas to futz with the GPS if I’m lost or not sure where I’m going. If there was a kid nearby, I’d only take enough note to not run them over, and immediately forget about them. I can just imagine some child worrying herself into a snit about why I’m stopped near her, and all I’m thinking is how annoying it is when the GPS loses signal.
“Family members located the vehicle…”
That is telling.
I guess the cops have to follow up, but maybe just maybe they didn’t consider this the most serious incident in their jurisdiction.
But it sure sounds like the family was looking. Which suggests to me that either they were lucky and happened into the vehicle, or they are so frantic that they put as much effort into looking for the vehicle as my parents and my friend’s mom put into looking for me and my friend after we had both been gone several hours and couldn’t be found where they *though* we had said we were going.
I’d hate to think how this story would have come out if the guy had not found the boat part he wanted. How would he prove he was not in town to snatch a child?
Hopefully this communicates to the girl that the world really isn’t a big and scary place where people routinely try to kidnap small children.
The girl was in a lot more danger riding that motorbike than from any imagined kidnapper. She said herself she almost crashed trying to get away from the car.
Unless they are leaving something out like the man said something creepy to her…this is absolutely ridiculous. So slowing down in a neighborhood in the vicinity of a child is now a crime?
I remember my oldest daughter coming home one day, all upset because some guy had — gasp! — waved at her and her friends while driving by. Apparently her friends completely freaked out. My response:
– Most likely, he meant no harm, and was just being friendly.
– However, if someone makes you uncomfortable, trust your instincts. Come home, or go somewhere with lots of other people. Even if you’re wrong, it doesn’t hurt anything.
– If I EVER catch her yelling curses or flipping off passing drivers the way her friends apparently did, she’ll be grounded for a month.
OMGosh, what would have happened if he hadn’t actually bought the boat part? Freaking insane!
Am getting quite fed-up with all this ‘I’m the centre of the universe’ nonsense. What was so special about this particular snowflake that any man who slowed down in a car, when she was racing around on a motorbike was a potential abductor? Very, very few strangers want YOU, honey, get over yourself….
Actually, that’s a bit mean on Snowflake, it’s the parents who are putting that sort of nonsense in her head. This looks like a rural area, you’d think rural people had better sense, but maybe not these days…..
Must be in a grump, but very unimpressed with this whole scenario. Grew up in a rural area and if a car slowed down it was either to
-ask for directions
-see if you wanted a ride
-ask how mum/dad/grandma was
-car had broken down/run out of petrol
Not once, ever, did any slowed down car mean anything bad was going to happen to the person ‘slowed down by’….
I’m surprised he wasn’t accused of planning to kidnap children and spirit them away by boat.
This is one instance I would support a defamation suit against the family for saying the driver is a child kidnapper.
Oregon is the same state that will fine you up to $6,250 for littering. ‘Nuf said.
Oh jeeze… this is my hometown! So embarrassing.
To be clear, this is a tiny rural place in the middle of nowhere in Oregon. I’m not surprised that the boat guy was lost. And although most people are pretty friendly there, it’s clear that kid napping paranoia can run unchecked pretty much anywhere.
Not the least bit surprising. Whatever that big sided building she was riding around was, it certainly looked as though it could be a place that might sell things like boat parts. The guy was slowing down to see if there was any sign or address number on the place, no doubt. He might not even have noticed the girl, except as something to avoid hitting.
Or maybe he made eye contact with her hoping he might be able to ask her where the place was. Yes, yes, we all know, you don’t ask directions from kids, but if there’s a kid right there, and you’re lost, and you don’t get out of the car, WHO CARES?
and my two friends murderers remain at large. Great use of police resources there.
So Dolly you live exactly where this happened and are served by the exact same police department?
“Hopefully this communicates to the girl that the world …
DOESN’T ACTUALLY REVOLVE AROUND HER.
Holy BALLS I’m just so annoyed with the way the first assumption is “Someone wants to kidnap me.” This child sees the whole world’s population through a filter of “anyone unknown to me potentially means me harm, in fact PROBABLY means me harm.”
This is what I mean by how tragic people’s strategies are around safety. In the name of “safety,” this child’s parents filled her with dread about “strangers,” sent her off on a motorbike, and she nearly crashed in a panic when some harmless person in a car slowed down because he was… LOST.
She coulda been kilt! By her own terror!
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH THIS IS NOT SAFETY!!!!!!!!!
OH THE HUMANITY!!! The sheriff’s report gave the address of the boat shop and how far and in what direction from the boat shop the little girl’s family lives. The sheriff’s office is putting the little girl at risk from anybody who wants to use police public records to plan their next kidnapping. Somebody stop them!!!
Buffy: this is not a problem with only this police department. We see this on this site regularly where police waste time with petty stuff and the real crimes go unsolved.
“Hopefully this communicates to the girl that the world really isn’t a big and scary place where people routinely try to kidnap small children.”
nonono, it just shows how good pedophiles are at creating alibis for themselves when they notice they’ve been spotted!
Or no doubt that’s how it’s going to end up being remembered.
It’s not unnatural for a girl that age to think that some random incident affects her because she’s the center of whatever is going on around her.
It’s ridiculous that all the adults in her life, including the whole stinkin’ police department, are encouraging it.
Is the mother who brought this absurd story to the media’s attention going to apologize the the police and this man for her paranoid *speculation*?
She needs to.
I also think the family of the girl should consider whether she needs help with her panic attacks. She could really hurt herself (or someone else) next time.
The poor man must have felt like the scum of the earth when police approached him concerning his presence near a child. Even though he was perfectly innocent, when police question you on your motives around a child, that in itself can be psychologically devastating and it does not do a lot for your self-esteem. Sometimes even the mere questioning can convince you that you’re guilty.
If the guy has children of his own or if he has nieces or nephews, this incident may affect his relationship with them. I do feel bad for the guy and I certainly hope his face his not shown or his name mentioned on any news broadcasts.
BUT the bandwagon shouts, “better safe than sorry and we’ve got to protect the children”! Even if it means ruining the life of an innocent adult.
Boats? Aren’t they the preferred vehicles of smugglers and pirates?
“and my two friends murderers remain at large. Great use of police resources there.”
Dolly, if this particular police department is not the one investigating your particular crime, then their use of resources is irrelevant to your alleged situation. But good on you for working these ‘murders’ into the conversation so that we can all continue to be amazed that everything that could ever happen to a person, has happened to you or someone you know.
“It’s not unnatural for a girl that age to think that some random incident affects her because she’s the center of whatever is going on around her.
It’s ridiculous that all the adults in her life, including the whole stinkin’ police department, are encouraging it.”
It’s the adults that created that girl’s attitude of thinking the world revolves around her in the first place…
Family members found the vehicle?
This bothers me the most. I have visions of a family lynch mob hunting this man down, and had he not been completely co-operative, what would have happened?
And in fact, he had no obligation to be co-operative.
So, there was no interaction other than eye contact, and this triggered her “instinct”? How does this girl manage to leave the house at all? She has apparently been trained to be a continuous “victim”, with no real crime necessary. Unfortunately, this makes her a real threat to any male she may come near…
Sadly common. I had moved to a new area for a job. I won’t answer a cellphone unless I’m parked, so as I’m exploring the roads to find alternate routes (The are gets a lot of snow)I get a call. I pull onto a side street, park and answer. Since I had just moved, all the billing questions and personal calls were to the cell until I got my hard line at the house. After THREE different people reported a suspicious male stopping near their homes, the cops came to have a talk. They were sympathetic, but said if I got called on again, I’d be cited civilly as a “Public Nuisance”.
“It’s the adults that created that girl’s attitude of thinking the world revolves around her in the first place…”
It’s the adults who have fostered and fed it. Being a girl of what, 11 or 12? is what created it.
Believing that you are the center of the universe is a common trait among 11/12 year olds. Believing that your child is the center of the universe seems to be a new facet of parenting though.
I don’t think that believing that a slowing car means somebody wants to kidnap you is a natural part of being a child, though. Selfishness, yes. Thinking you are the center of the world, yes. But paranoid fantasies about a person looking in your direction in a car that is slowing down meaning you are about to be kidnapped is not a natural part of child development.
I was out with my kids for a few hours yesterday, and I noticed at least 3-4 cars slow down significantly as they drove by, presumably to make sure that my kids, who were riding bikes and scooters on the sidewalks, were not going to dash out into the street. I appreciate their caution. It’s the drivers who don’t slow down at all when driving down a residential street with kids playing on it who scare me.
But, anyway, I saw a lot of comments on the first thread about this saying it was good that this girl responded to her instincts. I don’t think I agree. Our instincts are good, yes, but not if they are twisted by paranoia. Once that happens, our instincts are no longer a reliable guide. Honestly, I’m not sure how many of us, bombarded by images and stories about rare happenings, can truly rely on our instincts, because our instincts are now trained to see threats everywhere. At this point, I think we’re better off relying on common sense and a basic working knowledge of statistics than our “gut,” because more often than not our instincts are going to pick up on danger where there is none.
And, in this case, I think we can see that this can start happening very, very young. I feel bad for this girl, honestly. I know a lot of women like this, who think that they are constantly in danger, women who truly believe that every time a man waves at them on the street or says hello to them on a bus, there is a very good chance he wants to rape them, and they have no interest in correcting their misperceptions with the fact that the vast majority of male-female interactions do not end in rape. (In fact, I once had a woman tell me that, because 30% of women are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, that means that every time she meets a man, there is a 1-in-3 chance he is going to try to rape her, and so she was justified in her paranoia and feelings of constant victimization. She had no interest in learning how statistics actually work.) Similarly, a lot of people don’t care to know that nearly every time a stranger and a child interact, the child is not kidnapped or harmed, and really do seem to think that, at the very least, the odds are as good as not that the stranger has ill intentions. It’s a pernicious mindset that is very easy to fall into and it requires a lot of conscious effort to reason yourself out of, effort which I think is much less appealing than always feeling like a victim to many people.
anonymous mom, I agree. I was talking about the broader point of thinking that whatever was happening, is about you. Thinking that whatever is happening is about you is normal for that age; thinking that the “whatever” is about being kidnapped is what’s been fed to her by too many paranoid adults around her. If there was any doubt about that being a hasty generalization, that’s removed by the mom’s behavior in the interview and the response of the police department.
There is a happy medium between teaching your kids about being aware and cautious about strangers and making them think everyone is out to get them OMG!
Teach your kids not to approach vehicles with people you don’t know or go somewhere with them, yes.
Teach them every vehicle is filled with someone just waiting to grab them, no.
This is ridiculous. Seriously people.