Man Helps Boy Whose Ball Went Over Fence. Now Police Are Looking for Him

No way. This has to be a joke. Please God….

Though, being black, he’s probably lucky the teacher wasn’t armed…

It’s worse than mandemonium – it’s black mandemonium. The only thing worse than being a man around a child is being a black man around a child.

I was really hoping this would be from the Onion.

This is insane. What are we teaching our kids? Imagine being a boy, growing up in a world where they see men treated with suspicion for performing perfectly ordinary courtesies. As for the teacher and the cops teaching our boys by example that men can’t be trusted, that men are naturally perverted monsters…how dare they!

:O

Are we sure this one isn’t a joke? It has to be a joke.

“COMMON SENSE!”?

Sadly, if this keeps going common sense in a few years time will be that every body is a danger don’t you know.

If these ‘protected’ children grow up and never learn another point of view, this will be the common ground: “Every parent and other figures told me anyone is dangerous and little ones must be smothered. And as nothing happend to me and everybody agrees on this, it must be the truth and my kids must be protected some more. Shakled to the radiator in the basement until they are ‘grown up’ and ready for the real world.”

Training all boys to think they should grow up to be Bruce Jenner.
Everyone that I don’t know is dangerous: how are any of these kids going to grow up and procreate? Its like the religions that practiced celibacy (Shakers): self limiting, guaranteed to die out because they depend on converts instead of growing their own population.

End result, humanity is doomed. 🙂

Why did he have to lift the boy over the fence? Perhaps he could have thrown the ball over the fence to the boy. Not saying that this was an attempted abduction but this might be a case of a “Samaritan” going above and beyond the call of duty.

I have to admit, I think he was wrong to lift the boy over the fence, and if I were the teacher, I’d have asked him not to do it again. After all, presumably the whole purpose of the fence is to keep the children in during school hours. Besides, tossing the ball over the fence sounds a lot easier than lifting a kid over and then having to walk him around to the gate.

I’d like to say that calling the police was shockingly absurd, but apparently that’s now what we do anytime a man exists anywhere near an unrelated child.

This is exactly why I would not help the lost child I saw at the restaurant on Mother’s Day, I got my sister in law to do it because this would probably be me. Even though the parents never noticed the kid had left the dining room.

First of all, this is insane. Helping someone shouldn’t be a crime, and people shouldn’t automatically be more suspicious of black people, or men, or black men. In fact, I feel a bit guilty sometimes, that I can go to the park and watch the kids play, or even swing on the swings myself if I want to, because I’m white and female, which our society deems “non-threatening” for some reason. I didn’t want to participate in the photo challenge here, because I didn’t think it was fair that I could probably take photos of kids playing in the park, but Warren and the other (few) male FRK members would likely be questioned, as if being male automatically makes someone a pedophile–born with a Y-chromosome, and presumed guilty until proven innocent, from puberty onward. I remember a speech given by the (male) president of the student government when I was in my second year of university, either for International Women’s Day, or some other event we had to raise awareness about violence against women. He said that he was speaking that day not as president, but as a man, and he wanted to stand with the women, in opposition to the violence. Well, now, as a woman, I want to stand with the men, in opposition to the discrimination. I don’t know exactly to do this; I mean, I suppose we could declare a “Men Go To The Park By Themselves Day,” but then parents would just keep their kids inside that day, thereby defeating the purpose. Maybe instead, we could have a “men send in pictures of themselves relating positively with children” day. Those children could be family members, or family friends, or kids they babysit, or know through the YMCA or similar. I think this might change the flawed perception that all men are dangerous.

Anyway, on a lighter note, this story reminded me of this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQNBVsLR5F0

ummm, you don’t pick up strange children… why not just throw the ball over the fence? I generally agree with most of the posts here, but this one would have me suspicious as well. Could care less about the race

Yes, it is probably not best practices to pick up a child you don’t know and lift them over a fence. However, how many of us actually act in the way that is best practices 100% of the time? How many of us occasionally do something the first way that pops into our head without thinking through every other alternative, weighing the consequences and choosing the best way to do it? How many of us occasionally realize that we just did a really boneheaded thing after we do it?

We preach here all the time about the fact that parents should not be persecuted for being perfect and then many turn around and want to persecute other people for not being perfect. NOBODY is ever going to be perfect. We are all going to have moments when mistakes happen or we act before we think it through completely or we just view things differently than others. Our imperfections should not involve police interaction unless a crime is actually committed.

I love that one of the search terms with which Lenore tagged this article is “khakis”. That is fantastic.

ps – I just noticed that I used an apostrophe to pluralize “dads”. It also appears to be capitalized so maybe it was some weird autocorrect thing, because that’s one of my biggest pet peeves. In case its also the reader’s, I’m sorry! I promise that I know that an apostrophe does *not* mean “Look out! An ‘S’ is coming!”

Unfortunately I can confirm that this is true. It is so sad that our society cannot understand that most people are good, kind and helpful. I totally agree with Warren:
When people have to stop and think about how their act of kindness is going to be perceived, and stop and think about ways to do whatever so that the rest of you are comfortable with it, then the battle is lost.

My daughter goes to this school. 45 minutes before “the incident” I was out for a run. I ran by the school and said hello to MY daughter and a couple of her friends. I was on the other side of the fence. Before coming over to me, my daughter went over to her (substitute) teacher to tell her that I (her mom) was there. She asked permission to come over and say hello. The two teachers on playground duty felt the need to come over to me and request that I go into the school and sign in because I had an interaction with her, and because my friend was with me who is not a parent of the school. For the record, I did not. I am a rule-follower, unless the rules are stupid! It is an urban school. People walk by all the time. Apparently they need 20′ fences (insert sarcasm here) because the kids are apparently not allowed to go within a few feet of the fence, for fear of being abducted I presume.

As parents, we have taught our daughter that she CAN talk to strangers. We are a Canadian military family and we move around. If we didn’t talk to strangers, we wouldn’t have any friends, and either would our children. She does know not to go off with a stranger and how to respond if (in the highly unlikely event) someone were to try to take her.

This is really very good news for the people of Alexandria because it clearly indicates that there is absolutely no crime whatsoever going on in their town. Surely if there were, the police would be investigating actual crimes instead, right? Since all of these nice detectives are expending such effort on the “Great Ball and Fence Caper” it is obvious to me that Alexandria is the safest city in the western hemisphere (unless you are male and happen to smile at a kid, of course. Then they’re coming for you.).

Rachel,

That rule of staying away from the fence immediately brought the image of Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, to mind. Where he tests the perimeter within the fence, by tossing his ball out into the forbidden zone.

Oh lord, I’ve heard it all.

A grandfatherly man helps a young boy retrieve his ball.

He is now going to be subject to a police investigation.

*headdesk*

What’s next? Are we going to suspect the boy scout helping the elderly woman across the street of being as a potential rapist? Or will the elderly woman be accused of being a possible pedophile?

to the comment of M – really interesting out of the box comment. As i grew up (outside of the US) as a child, I was encouraged to help for instance old people or blind people to cross the street. Proactively or reactively. Unrelated to me. ALso perfectly harmless in the context of crossing a busy street on a pedestrian crossing at a traffic light.

but now, those people, if that honored tradition also exists in the US, will apparently have to choose between risking it alone or risking investigation if not arrest. Especially blind people will have to make sure the age of the helper is accurate, as they cannot judge from the voice.

But of course.

The reason some schoolgrounds are fenced is to stop kids from leaving.
Lifting the kid over the fence makes the fence pointless.

I would have picked up the ball to give it back.

That said. Since nothing criminal occured, it is still a bad thing to see him hunted like this.

This is not related to the story, but related to hysteria (in my opinion).

On an internet forum I frequent, an incident was mentioned. I was wondering what people here think of this.

I have very few details (as does everyone else commenting on the other site). A teen girl was in the school locker room and took a selfie. (There is no indication that she was unclothed in the photo, that other kids were in the photo, or that she forwarded the photo to anyone.) She was given a 10 day suspension. I thought that was pretty harsh. But everyone else thinks that it is well-deserved (or even too mild), because if this girl isn’t severely punished and made an example, someone could take a nekkid teen photo and forward it and it would go viral and lead to bullying and suicide.

Yes, that could happen. Yes, it has happened. But is this a logical way to respond to the risk?

has anyone considered that the older gentleman might not have been able to retrieve the ball and that’s *why* he lifted the kid over the fence? You can have a bad knee or arthritis and be able to lift a child but not be able to crouch down to retrieve a ball.

Here’s a novel idea. Stop treating your students like convicts, and get rid of the fences. The only fences most of our schools have are where school property meets up with private property, such as backyards. They don’t have fences anywhere else.

I wonder if the little boy didn’t raise his arms in the universal sign for “lift me up” and that was why the guy hoisted him over the fence. Maybe the kid wanted to retrieve his own ball. There’s nothing wrong with that.
As an aside, back when I was a municipal reporter on a daily newspaper, I once covered a planning board meeting in which a proposal for a nursing home to be built next to an elementary school was discussed. Two of the board members expressed doubt about the project, saying that the “cranky old people” would be likely to refuse to return any balls that went over the fence from the school playground next door.
That was before the days of pedophile fever. Now I suppose they’d be worried about the “creepy old men” molesting the children.

One time when i was little my mom walked with me to the busstop, they freaked out even though i told them she was my mom. They threatened to call the police if she didn’t get away from me.. That was the last time i went to THAT school.

Would there have been an all-points bulletin if the man had been white?

both on same side of fence

man lifted boy over fence to retrieve ball

man was called out for “touching” child, so…

he had child walk to opening on one side of fence while man on other side.

clearly he did not want the “risk” of lifting up child again so he walked him to park opening

man couldn’t throw ball back as ball was on other side of fence

60+ man climbs fence or lifts child?

“common” sense tells us he was helpful

“current” sense tells us he is a predator who needs to be dealt with in harsh terms

“Sounds like my town a couple of years ago. Only the other side of the country, sadly. An unknown man talked to some kids at the edge of the playground. The kids, when they went in, told the teacher and police were called. No man was ever found.”

This is getting stranger and stranger. Schoolchildren are part of the community. 6″ man in khakhis and bored father on edge of playground are part of the community. tThey are real human beings standing on either side of a fence or a playground. This isn’t “I see dead people”. Why should they need to act as if one another doesn’t exist?

Statistically, men and women are about the same when it comes to crimes against children. Kidnappings involve women more than men. I’ve read stats that in cases of male strangers abducting children, was because of a woman. ie. woman they are with wants a child, and gets the man to abduct one.

Point being, male strangers are getting a very bad wrap these days. And probably because more women tend to speak out against them, for whatever their reason is. One thing is for sure, it’s baseless. No facts, just personal views and fears.

I wonder that the kids didn’t get together to help the 6 year old over it, as our kids sometimes do with older kids . Off topic slightly, but one boy at our school last year turned up with 2 broken arms. He was playing soccer with his cousins when the ball went over some kind of high fence, and being the youngest, it was deemed that he should be tossed over to retrieve it….quite literally.

He got time in A@E, his cousins got a special session with their mums and whatever non-threatening bashing tool was at hand! 🙂

And I know I’ve mentioned it before on this site, but in regards to the fear of men, a bright ray of light is the fact that in my career in Title 1 elementary schools, male teachers are commonly requested with the reasoning being the children of single moms need a positive male role model.

What if the little boy asked the man to help him? Was he supposed to say “no, I could get arrested”? I guess so.

@ Rachel,

That’s some wild story within the story!
Having to sign in to talk to your kid.
Like you have to do in prison.
Which sort of lets the cat out of the bag. Schools following the good old incareration industrial model.
Kids as inmates. Teachers as prison guards. Principals as wardens.

And yeah, it is a joke – a sick pathetic joke. Kids as toxic waste. Dangerous to come within a mile of.
Of course the issue was contact. If classmates (knowledgeable within the classroom and during a school year) aren’t allowed to touch each other…….then a stranger as venerable and ancient African American male is beyond the pale.
What’s a poor cop to do?

Apparently we think that we’re teaching our kids exactly how to ’embrace’ a brave new future.
I say craps to that.

But it’s all about context.
Sure. I’m in over my head here, and drowning – and I’m shyte outa luck if all that’s available is perfect strangers unto my pore little drowning incorporated self. Shame on me for not bringing my very own personal vetted and state-sanctioned bodyguard/lifeguard to the beach!

I’d say suspicion directed toward an act of kindness is what it is – and always has been: paranoia.
And aren’t we become the paranoid little society, scared of its own shadow?
In Hooliganywood……..we dodge bullets like they’re butter – but can’t get over our own boogey-fantasies.

It is indeed, an act of moral aggression and bully-mindedness – to create an invisible aura around any child – of viciously applied out of control protective straight-jacketing.
As if we have completely un-learned how to do this with any normative public decency and accountability.

Who exactly, are the children, here?
Thank God I was raised by adults. My whole town was chock full of them. You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting one. A marvelous time and place. One might think I grew up in Heaven.
They were simple people. Living in the land of the free and home of the brave.
And the end result was that I was free…………too.

By social design, kids don’t have much of a voice around here.
Neither did I, back then.
But the symphony of sound my ears used to hear at least had some harmony to it.
Merry Melodies that made sense.

(My father could imitate Uncle Remus, perfectly.)

We don’t know if the boy was already climbing the fence and the gentleman helped him over so he could get the ball and go back. I am sure a man in his 60’s would have gladly just gotten the ball but some kids (like mine) like to try and climb the fence and then get stuck on it.

Even if it was the wrong choice it is not criminal!

I wonder if the man was white if this would be different. My gut says it would have which is a whole different discussion!

@Paula, ideally, it is true that race is irrelevant. I suspect, though, that people are more suspicious (this holds true, by the way, for observers of all races, from what I’ve seen) of a black man interacting with a child than a white man, and of any man than any woman. Maybe I’m wrong, but it holds true in other areas. See, for instance, the difference in outcomes where people of different races open-carry in jurisdictions where doing so is legal – regardless of your opinion on gun control.

I also think you’re taking “pick up” a bit too literally. If he picked up the boy in the sense that a parent picks up a child, as in, took him home, then yes, that would be over the line. (As is, by the way, requiring a parent to present ID to pick up their child, in my opinion.) But he didn’t – he picked him up as in momentarily lifted off the ground.

I remember being about six or seven years old (in the sixties) and climbing from a stone wall to the top of a stone pillar which, along with another on the other side flanked the entrance to my neighborhood in New Rochelle, N.Y., right on the Boston Post Road. Well, it was easy getting up but not getting back down. I guess it was obvious I was stuck because a man pulled over, got out of his car and lifted me up and off that pillar and set me down. I think he said a soothing word or two before he did it. I recall being nervous and feeling funny to have a strange man pick me up, but boy was I ever grateful!

P.S., When I said I could teach a child to do a cartwheel, I meant that, I, personally, am capable of doing a cartwheel, and teaching a child to do it. However, a lot of summer camps and kid-oriented places banned the practice years ago, unless under the supervision of a trained gymnastics coach.

Stop the world. I want to get off!

*headdesk*

A man touched a child? (Lifting him over the fence) He’s black!? of course he’s guilty! What more evidence do you need?

Also, a white SUV is almost like a white van. The man had a camera as well. This looks like a job for Amber Alert!

I am not a parent, but cannot wait to be one. I am 18, and my mother, starting from middle school, allowed me to ride the bus. Though my father disagreed, it continued. He was afraid I would be snatched off. It never happened, despite being in a high crime area. I do not consider it neglect, and neither did anyone here in PA. And only an idiot considers such child neglect.

Now, how does this rant deal with the subject? Today, I believe there is too much hysteria concerning the welfare of the child. Hysteria does not help the child’s welfare. In countries where free-range techniques are more accepted, such as Iceland, they have the same rate of child sexual abuse as other countries. They have the same amount of child molesters as any country. Sure other crime is much lower there, but most of that doesn’t involve kids, but rather drunken idiots getting into fights or driving off…Kids know how to defend themselves if they feel they are allowed to.

Today, due to my father’s possessiveness, have trouble leaving the house alone. It feels wrong somehow. Wrong to be an adult.

“If this girl isn’t severely punished and made an example, someone could take a nekkid teen photo and forward it and it would go viral and lead to bullying and suicide.” Somehow we have lost all sense of perspective. This is the same thinking that encourages people to call the cops when they see an eight year old waiting in the car by themselves, or a man talks to a child. Infants have died in hot cars, so *obviously* we cannot leave an eight year old in the car on a mild day.

My husband travels for work, He will often stop to watch a little league game, because he enjoys watching the kids play, especially if they are little. If we see a toddler in public he will often engage the child in silliness. (our kids claim to be too old for that kind of stuff. I am glad to live in a part of the country where this is still seen as friendly behavior, not criminal. On a walk in a Florida neighborhood, he was admonished for walking too close to an elementary school. I couldn’t live in a place where this was considered inappropriate.

kate, I am like your husband. I love watching little leaguers play. There’s something about the joy in their faces when they make the play that seems lost in watching adults. Adults usually have pride in their faces way more than joy, at least to me. Not saying adults aren’t happy or pleased, but joy is something different (again, to me). I’ve resigned myself to watching the little league world series, because I’m terrified that some parent will wonder if I’m singling out their kid. I have no kids of my own, my sister’s school-age kids are autistic, and my ex-gf’s kids are too old. I have no friends close enough to go watch their kids. (I don’t make friends easily, bit of a hermit at times, lol)

It makes me miserable that we live in a world where a single adult male can’t be involved with kids just because he enjoys it, finds it fun and fulfilling, or is lonely. That person is seen as strange and messed up, a danger.

Where I live (San Diego) there is a sign on the outside of the fence by the elementary school asking adults not to interact with the children. Kind of reminds me of a Do Not Feed The Animals sign at a zoo.

Damn, when I get back home the police will be waiting for me!
Our house basically borders onto two primary schools, I am forever retrieving lost balls for children, either in our yard or out on the street,
Although I am mean, the super fun bouncy balls tend to stay “lost” if they came over the fence, they are just too much fun! (and aren’t good for me randomly chucking them over the fence after I get home from work, too much bounce).

xnexus,
You are wrong. The police have no obligation to investigate anything in this matter. No laws were even close to being broken. Actually the police have no right to investigate this man for anything. The police are not their to investigate everytime someone does something that someone else doesn’t like.

Xnexus – so are you saying that I can flag down a cop and say “that person is breathing” and they’d be required to investigate? Because that’s basically what we have here – a report of an activity that is not a crime, doesn’t look like a crime, has nothing to do with a crime – and you’re claiming for some reason they have to investigate.

I’d understand if I told a cop “that guy tried to kill me” he’d be expected to investigate, even if I’m obviously lying. But that’s different from when the report itself doesn’t even reference a crime.

Of course, I’m relying on an intuition that comes from a world where search and seizure based on mistake of fact was deemed constitutional, but not based on mistake of law – that is, before Heien. Now, maybe my intuition is all screwed up.

I think it is generally not a good idea to physically (emphasis on physically) interact with stranger children that, like the one of this case, are not your relatives, or under you care somehow (daycare, church group, sports training etc). It is just a matter of general respect for personal boundaries.

Doesn’t mean, at all, though, that this is something for the police to investigate.

I’d not like strangers physically handling my children when I have them, if they don’t have a personal (family) or professional (teachers, swim coaches, doctors etc) reason to do so. But not all unwarranted physical interaction is a precursor to bad and evil things. Some adults just don’t get it. I’m obviously not even considering the issue of “inappropriate sexualized touching” which is an entirely different manner.

So, no, I will not teach my children not to talk to strangers, or fear them all, but I will teach them not to let other adults touch them unless they are hurt or in an emergency.

Well, I just read about a person who was searched, and had $60 (what he had on him) “civilly seized” because he had purchased a whole sleeping car on train, so I guess buying legal things is a perfectly good reason to investigate someone now.

Andre – what personal boundaries are violated if the child doesn’t have a problem with being lifted up? I don’t think anyone would be quick to say “that’s great” to an adult picking up a child who is saying not to. This wasn’t some sort of non-consensual picking up. From what you say right after, it sounds like you somehow think it’s about the parents’ personal boundaries – those haven’t been violated either, since no one picked them up. When you let your child into the world, one of the things that may happen is the child having a different threshold for personal space than you do. That doesn’t violate anyone’s boundaries.

I wonder what would happen if everyone played into other people’s fears, paranoia and sanctimony. Every time we see a child in distress, we will ignore. And if people start bitching about how “no one cares”, we say, “well, we would’ve helped, but considering people who are good samaritans seem to be getting busted by cops or CPS, and have to go through a whole bunch of legal b.s., it wasn’t worth mine or my own families time.”

Really, if its a case of helping a total stranger, and keeping the well being and privacy of my family intact. I’m choosing my own family. There are ALWAYS consequences for people’s actions. People ignoring other people’s plights to avoid any litigation, are one of them. What’s the point in trying to help, only to get into trouble by authorities, because some parents or people would rather chastise someone they don’t know, than appreciate the kindness they would have given. They should be happy that there are still good people out there looking out for their kids when they aren’t around.

I have a dog that gets out of the yard once in a while, and I have to go around the neighborhood looking for her and asking people if they’ve seen her. (often I’ll have to ask for assistance to catch her, too. She’ll run from me cause she knows I’ll bring her home, but she’ll gladly approach a stranger offering attention and pets) I’m always paranoid that someone is gonna get on my case for asking a kid. (you know, cause the stereotypical child abductor sometimes asks for help finding his puppy) I probably don’t have to worry about it cause I’m a chick, but with people these days, ya never know.