Mom Freaks Out That Man at Mall Is Taking Selfies…With Her Kids In the Background! (And Facebook Supports Her)

“I never go anywhere by myself” tells you everything you need to know about this “victim”.

I’m about to become a mom and I’m so dreading these situations. Katie, I will stand with you and be a common-sense mom! I applaud you for standing up to the hysteria. It’s just going to take more of us repeating common sense and actual facts to get to a point where things calm down. I hope I hope.

As a Columbusite, I…I have no words.

Katie, thank you for being a voice of reason, even it did seem to fall on deaf ears.

@Richard — My first thought, too, was how she knew she was in every frame. *shakes head*

“I never go anywhere by myself”

How does she find people to go places with her? The only way I’d go anywhere with someone like this is if she made me go at gunpoint. And I’d have to be really really sure the gun was loaded.

I’m kind of worried that the mall security played along with the delusion.

Let’s play pretend.
Let’s pretend that paranoid-mom was absolutely and totally correct. Two men, secretly pedophile-kidnappers, singled her out at the mall because her precious little snowflake L is so incredibly desirable. They walked around the mall, AND TOOK PICTURES OF HER AND L!!! OMG!!!

OK… and? Are we getting to the scary and/or illegal part yet? No? That’s the whole story? Why are mall security looking at photos on this person’s phone? Even if there are 10,000 pictures of delightful little L on this phone, all take surreptitiously and without permission… there’s nothing illegal in that.

Your husband had to take time off work to come to the mall and walk you to your car because… you can’t take care of yourself? The mall security people laughed at you when you demanded that they do it?

I don’t know anything about Columbus, or about this particular mall. If it’s so dangerous, though, obviously we need to be investigating this mother for child endangerment, for taking poor defenseless L there without an armed security detail for protection.

“With that being the case, wouldn’t this man have a legal case for libel or slander against this woman?”

First off, “Libel” is something you write, and “slander” is something you say. “Defamation” covers both.

OK, in order to have a defamation case, you need to have a false statement, published to third parties, which causes damages. (There is a small subset of defamation cases, called “defamation per se”, in which the plaintiff doesn’t have to prove damages. This is not a defamation per se case).

So, the thing keeping this lady from being sued (and, BTW, everybody who re-publishes it) is that he’s going to have to point to actual damages he has suffered as a result of this accusation… was he fired from his job? Is he a salesman who lost sales? A merchant who had to close up shop? Or just a tourist from NY who will never see any of these Ohioans again?

This is especially sad because it represents such a step backwards for the women’s movement. Women who won’t go anywhere alone usually end up with men who won’t let them go anywhere alone (i.e. men who want to boss and dominate them).

Contrast the reaction here to the comments about the 9yo girl who reported an alleged crime without naming any names or posting any photos of the “suspect.” This is an adult who purposely, publicly smeared a specific human who had done nothing wrong, and she’s getting kudos or at worst laughs.

To the comment about men not letting wives out alone – I pictured the woman’s husband telling her not to go out without him again, because she can’t handle it, and most employees can’t leave work every time a family member’s imagination gets the better of her.

I would also worry about leaving her alone at home with a child. She is not responsible. Does she hear voices? Will the voices tell her to drown her kid or chop off his arm? It has happened many times.

Am I the only person who is way more freaked out by this woman’s behavior than by the men’s?

Amy O:

Thanks for that link. I am totally amused that the shopkeeper was said to “confiscate” the tourist’s camera. Unless that shopkeeper is a law enforcement official, that sort of “confiscation” is known by another term: theft. I don’t care how noble my motivations are; if I accost a stranger and forcibly take his camera, I am guilty of theft and possibly assault. So it seems to me the actual criminal that day was the do-gooder.

“Are our lives so boring? Is it exciting to be “part of the story” by passing it along?”

In many cases, yes, and yes. Couple that with the opportunity to feel sanctimonious and self righteous toward anyone who suggests that your fears might be a bit over-blown, and they swoop in like vultures to a week old roadkill.

Even if he *WAS* taking pictures of her child, and even if he was going to go home and fawn over them, that child is going to have far more damage done to it by its crazy mother than ever could possibly have been done by the picture taker.

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Yes, as a lone female in an isolated place, especially at night, it can be. In a public mall in the middle of day? She’s more likely paranoid.

Every mall I’ve ever been in I’ve walked in the same manner: made a clockwise or counterclockwise circuit of the hallways. Unless one has a specific destination and a time limit, there really is no other way to do it. Apparently, walking in the same direction as another person in a public place is now “following”. She “tried to walk away”. How? Did she stop and browse a store to let him pass and he waited instead? Did she change floors and he followed? Or did she merely continue toward her destination, and he did the same?

We clearly need to emulate Saudi Arabia and institute women-only malls.

And yes, “I never go anywhere by myself” tells you the whole story right there, just stop reading at that point & save yourself the agita.

Maybe the woman was not being factual when she said that he was taking a ton of photos and then deleted them all.

Maybe the truth was that he did take some photos and there was nothing offensive about them so he was left alone. But that would not have been a good enough story.

That was my thought to, that like grocery stores, people tend to have a certain route that they take, which is the more likely reason that it appeared he was “following” her. Also, just because someone has their phone out and is tapping the screen does not mean they are taking pictures and even if they are, you as a bystander have no way of knowing which camera he was using. If he’s using the front camera and is taking selfies, he has no way of knowing that you’re making crazy eyes at him. And please, for the love, see a therapist before you pass your paranoia onto your kid.

Some people are just fearful by nature, and the media hype plays directly to them. I get those kind of glares from time to time (thought I never take selfies). I do fit the profile – 51, gray hair, married with two kids. Yep, typical molester model.

Oh dear! Lenore, please consider editing the last sentence of this post. We do not know that this woman was clearly “paranoid” or “delusional.”

There is nothing wrong with a mom trusting her gut. There’s nothing wrong with leaving a location because you don’t have a good feeling about someone. There’s nothing illegal about snapping a photo of a guy in a public place who is giving you the creeps, just like there’s nothing illegal about taking innocent photos of other people’s children in a public place. There’s nothing wrong with sharing your experience with friends and loved ones, and looking for comfort and sympathy, when you are clearly quite shaken.

We weren’t there, we don’t know the truth, and some of the details in the original post would certainly put me on alert. She does sound a little overly anxious about the world. But paranoid people aren’t *always* wrong. We don’t know, and more importantly, there is NO NEED for us to have an opinion about it one way or the other. There is also nothing wrong with this woman’s loved ones posting supportive comments to her.

Where all of this seemed to fall of the rails is when people started forwarding around a photo of the random guy, accusing him of something they had no firsthand knowledge of. And when people started acting like *everyone’s* children were in danger because of one uncomfortable incident. And most horribly, when people started wishing *actual harm* upon another woman’s child because that woman’s views were not well-received by the Virtue-Signaling Sancti-Mob.

But mom-shaming the original poster, for getting rattled in the first place, because you wouldn’t have been rattled yourselves, seems to be committing the same internet vice as the Overreaction Crowd. I don’t like when commenters here start trying to tell other people they are bad parents or crazy, since I thought the whole point of this blog was the opposite of that. And is it really her fault that 19,200 other people decided to turn her personal experience into a fullblown crisis du jour?

Where can this woman be reported to as being way too unstable to be left in sole charge of a toddler? Seems to me the only one here who is endangering this child’s life is her mother who is clearly paranoid. If this isn’t treated, it’s only going to get worse over time. Her husband needs to wake up to the difficulties at home before it warps his child and affects his own life (how much time will be able to take off work to ‘rescue’ his family?).

I agree that mom’s gut is *usually* to be listened to, but there are still crazy people in the world, and this lady seems to be a good candidate for that title.

IMO if your gut tells you a situation is bad, you get yourself out of the situation. You don’t turn it into a big “all about me” circus.

I am fine with the lady alerting mall personnel and sticking around to find out the outcome. The outcome was, there was no evidence he had done anything criminal. You don’t follow that up with a sensational, all-about-me facebook rant complete with a photo of a person who had been cleared of wrongdoing.

“Here’s the police statement on the “incident”. The comments section is extremely disturbing. ”

What an understatement.
What’s truly amazing is the imagination amongst the commenters, who seem eager to provide imaginary extra details.

Also fun is the imaginary violence carried by the “well, I woulda…” crowd.

“Either way, I’m not sure what human trafficking could possibly have to do with a man allegedly taking photos of a toddler at the mall…”

Four or five pages down in the comments section of the Columbus PD’s comment (cited above), you can find all the missing details.

The guy is “obviously” taking pictures of the kids, sending them to the mysterious “boss” who’s picking out which one(s) he wants. He’s carrying a bag that contains a change of clothes and drugs to subdue mom and child (which, apparently, the mall security team is incompetent, because they missed this entirely.)

I’m going to chalk it up as an overall good thing that these people obviously have no idea how human trafficking works… it means they’ve never experienced it, and neither has anybody else they know. Yes, their ignorance colors their perception of the world, but that’s still better than if there WAS a wider swath of people who had been affected by it.

I have a cousin who is just this paranoid and so is her husband. He owns a small auto repair business. In our younger days when we had little ones any time someone came to their home for some sort of repair they had scheduled or an entity had scheduled she would bundle up her little ones (4 of them in 7 years), head to the Shop where she would sit and answer phone calls or tell customers who were bringing in their vehicle for repair they would have to wait or return later while he would go home to allow the telephone guy to do the installation they had ordered or the gas company to light their pilot lights after the gas line repair in the neighborhood and so on.
One day he was too busy to trade places so she called me and asked me to stay on the phone with her until the cable installer was gone…again this was a man who was doing a job my cousin and her husband had asked to happen. I’m not sure what she thought I could do in an “emergency” but I was bored and it was nice chat with her for while.

Fast forward. We are now grandmothers with no little at home anymore. She and her husband still do the trading places thing.

I share this story to say there are many paranoid people in the world but at least in the 80s and 90s they didn’t have Facebook and other social media to share their paranoia with the world.

People ARE paranoid.

One man asked me, “Why am I staring at him?
I said,”My face has to be positioned somwhere.

I am waiting for the traffic light to change

So she made her point about a stranger taking selfies with her kids in the background by being a stranger posting a guy’s face online (which then got about a thousand views by other strangers). Right. Cause that makes it better.

I would like to relate an incident that I was involved in many years ago. It doesn’t involve any children but it’s how I turned the tables on one paranoid woman. Since you come from NYC I’m sure you can relate to the things I say. Nowadays if someone even thinks you’re looking at them it can lead to a confrontation that can get you seriously hurt or killed. That wasn’t always the case but as far back as I remember people didn’t like to be looked at, even in a public place. I never could understand why people think you’re looking at them. You have to look somewhere and in a crowded city like NY you’re always looking in someone’s direction.

This particular day I was waiting for the bus on Madison Avenue and was near the front of the line. Like most New Yorkers I would look down Madison Avenue to see if a bus was coming (never made the bus come any faster). All of a sudden this woman at the back of the line starts screaming at me, demanding to know why I was looking at her. I immediately answered back and asked how she knew I was looking at her unless she was looking at me! I wanted to know why she was looking at me. It shut her up real quick. Today an encounter like that can quickly escalate and get you killed but just ignoring it is just as dangerous. Which leads to the question – Where are you supposed to look? How did people become so paranoid that they think anyone looking in their direction singled them out and is going to do them some harm? Why is danger attached to anything you look at – look at a woman, rape; look at a child – kidnapping; look at a building – casing it for a terrorist attack? You get the point. Have a camera, it gets even worse. Yet all this activity is one hundred percent perfectly legal. Why are we so paranoid? I’m more concerned about the government’s covert intrusion into my life then some other private citizen just looking at me.

@SKL

Yeah, this lady is very likely mentally ill. I knew someone once who believed that a conspiracy of apparently random people were following them, keeping track of them, taking photos of them, etc. This person ended up being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

The fact that she needed her husband to pick her up after the ‘incident’ is evidence that she’s not the most emotionally resilient person to start with. And then, the comment she made that she “never goes anywhere alone” is a sign to me that she certainly has some paranoid tendencies on top of that.

I think that she should seek mental help, and I really find it quite scary that the majority of her social circle shares and reinforces her delusions.

These kind of situations are sickening.

Much of this is “I’m a better mommy than you are”. SHE is vigilant. SHE recognizes danger. If YOU don’t, you has a “bad mommy”. Nothing will ever happen to HER kid, but you are putting yours at risk. Because you don’t love your children. Or care about them.

Even if something actually DOES happen to her kid, despite her paranoid vigilance, it will just prove she is right to be paranoid. If nothing happens, it still proves she is right. She can’t lose.

The mothers who aren’t paranoid are simply “lucky” nothing has happened to their children, YET.

Personally, I think it is becoming a mental illness for some women. I know a couple of women who won’t let their own husbands watch the kids, even when the kids are 5, 8, 10….. Because they need to control every danger. And they don’t trust their husbands to be as vigilant as they are.

“Here’s the police statement on the “incident”. The comments section is extremely disturbing.”

Facebook Court is now in session!
Get out your pitchforks and back an irrational mom…

“Thankfully my husband left work to come to the mall so I didn’t have to walk to my car alone.”

And hopefully drive her to the doctor to get some help. What do one tell their employer when they have to leave work for this?? My wife is having trouble coping with…cellphones and scared at the mall? Why can’t mall security walk the mom to her car? Does anyone actually shop at malls anymore?
So many questions…

This woman should be telling her story to a psychiatrist, not on Facebook.

DocHal: The premodern concept of the Evil Eye has never really gone away, and it’s come back as the postmodern concept of the Male Gaze.

What seems new, at least to me, is the perverse notion of “privacy in public”; the idea that one can draw boundaries in public or quasi-public spaces and decide who can cross them (all that was missing from the story was the mom shouting “we need some muscle here!”), that one can go out in public and not be looked at. That seems to be coupled with a rejection of truly private spaces as “exclusive” or “hegemonic”.

The smelliest part of the story? Every shopping mall I’ve ever been to is full of stores that cater exclusively to women. If a rational woman thought a man *might* be following her, she’d walk into one of those stores; a man who was minding his own business would simply walk on past. Nothing says she tried to do that.

Everything about this story sounds wrong….from the opening comment that she never goes out alone to having to call her husband at work to walk her to her car. And how does she possibly know that she and her child were in all of the selfies she somehow knows he took?

Kathleen – “I’ve secretly always hoped to walk into the home of someone I didn’t meet until I was 30 to find a picture of myself as a kid”

There are a couple different stories that went viral of couples getting married discovering photos from childhood with their future spouse in the background:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/01/engaged-couple-photo-before-they-met_n_5642772.html

“Before British newlyweds Aimee Maiden, 25, and Nick Wheeler, 26, got married, the couple rifled through old photographs at the groom’s grandparents’ home. They found a photo taken in 1994 of Wheeler building a boat in the sand with his sister and cousins in Mousehole, Cornwall, where Maiden grew up. In the backdrop, Maiden can also be seen playing at the beach with her family. What’s particularly striking about this happenstance is that Wheeler lived nowhere near the area. The groom is originally from Kent, which is about 300 miles away from Mousehole, and was spending time there with his family on vacation. The two eventually officially met in college and got married on Saturday at the Gulval Church, just steps from where the original photo was taken two decades before their wedding day.

But this isn’t the first time a married couple has made such an unlikely discovery. A week before their wedding, Alex and Donna Voutsinas found a photo of themselves when they were little kids in 1980 — 15 years before they would meet. The image shows Donna’s family posing with Mr. Smee and Alex being pushed in a stroller in the background, the Star reported in 2010. The two were actually living in different countries at the time.”

I would guess that she “never goes anywhere alone” because her mom was a helicopter mom. So sad for her to have this mentality and so sad for her children that they’ll grow up with it too.

@Katie G
“I’ve said before here that if we call a spade a spade, and use the word “sexist” when discussing these “Eek! A Male!” stories, it might just make a few people pause.”

That would imply that this is perfectly OK, as long as we start treating women the same way. You think that couldn’t happen?

No. It’s wrong, period. Call them delusional, or evil.

What part of “you are out in public” do they not understand?

What I find disturbing is that this Social Shaming that goes on by posting pictures of men and attaching vilifying names to them comes off to me as Cyber Bullying. Except in this case you have NO IDEA who the person is, what they were doing, or why. But since these are such easy targets (men somewhere in public with children) its easy to start up a witch hunt.

Get the pitchforks and stocks folks, Salem lives again!

People post this sort of thing on Facebook because you can always find an echo chamber to support whatever position you take up. Including fearful Moms, who apparently have the ability to sense out child molesters by sight. Sadly this will probably never change.

Maybe she should be worried far more about how she got to the mall.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/absurd-primacy-of-the-car-in-american-life/476346/

Feelings are the new law. The play ground bully now makes the rules

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

-George Orwell 1984

Facebook shamings are the 2 minutes’ hate.

I’m a writer (at least I think so, lol….self-published, but still.) and I sometimes walk the mall or a Wal-Mart and see a kid that I think would be the spitting image of the character I had in my head. I’d love to whip out the phone and take a picture of said kid…however, I’m so terrified that I’d get in trouble that I don’t bother.

I get photos from shutterstock and such. Candid shots are much better for this writer’s needs. As I’ve mentioned before, once the kid knows he/she is being photographed the image loses something and the child’s behavior changes. Since, without probably raising someone’s ire, I can’t get the candids I want anyway…I just go with stock photographs for inspiration.

David

PS…How long did he have to delete his ‘selfies’? He has some quick fingers apparently.

Flying helicopters sounds like fun. We used to run at a local middle school (to help my daughter train for a race). We would watch the helicopters flying as a reward. Please don’t stop doing fun things because crazy people are in the universe.

“my money is on that over a sex trafficker with drugs and a change of clothes in the bag.”

You’re just saying that because mall security actually stopped the guy, and had he had drugs and a change of (women’s? kids’? Both?) clothes in the bag, the outcome of their interview would have been different.

“No ever screamed “OMG GET AWAY FROM THAT KID” at me, even though I didn’t know the kid personally.”

Of course not. “EEEK! A WOMAN!” just doesn’t have that same horror attached to it.

I have no intention of stopping. The attitude of the Police Officer convinced me that it wasn’t the time nor the place to press it further. I made it clear that I was stopping at that time only because the officer asked me to. I am on the list to address this issue in front of the City Council tonight.

When my nephews were younger, we used to build model rockets on Good Friday and then I’d take them to the park on the Saturday before Easter to launch them. We would usually end up with five or six other kids watching us. I always brought enough supplies to do several launches. Pretty much every kid that was allowed to got to launch one. Damn shame those days are over.

The funny part is wait until I start test flying my drone in a few weeks.

@James Pollock, pretty sure if the kid’s mother had noticed, she would have screamed at him for “talking to a stranger”, even though the (sexist) consensus seems to be that women arent as great a threat.

This whole thing bothers me. With so many people at the mall, how does one know if there is a pedophile nearby. I am certain that they have the same right as others to go to the mall, shopping and even riding on public transportation. Many people I see in malls whether they be a man, woman or child, most everyone has a cell. You cannot be suspicious all the time about who is doing what as long they mind their own business. Everywhere I go, there are cells pointed everywhere and you have to paranoid to think that people are taking pictures of you or your children. People are photographed most anywhere. But to post someone’s picture on a social site, it is asking for trouble. Not only the victim has been exposed for no wrong doing but he has the grounds to sue. He probably has a good chance to win the law suit. I believe people should think before they hastily act.

This is why I now carry pepper spray on me. I take photos of everything wherever I go, and I have for years, and have no intention of stopping.

If someone simply asks nicely what I’m doing, I’m happy to clarify my innocent intentions. However, if they get threatening, I’m not surrendering my camera or memory card or being “persuaded” to delete anything.

In public, you have no right to the expectation of privacy. Period. Get over it, or stay inside. End of story.

I am so glad that mom reacted and was able to sound the alarm and get help.

Also I must say “Lenore” (If that’s really your name….something tells me it’s LENORD and you have a teeny weeny peeny so you just pretend you’re a girl.)

Your article raises red flags and reeks of “DAMN I ALMOST GOT CAUGHT LET ME PRETEND TO BE A WOMANZ AND SHIFT SUSPICION FROM ME AND Y FELLOW PEDOS!”

my advice to you “Ma’am”

get used to and over the fact that while so tiny one would need a microscope to see it your little “friend” is actually a penis not a clit.

and that when stalking a toddler and trying to kidnap it and stalk the mom the best thing to do is NOT post an “article” like this one….

Why?

because it SCREAMS “OMG I ALMOST GOT CAUGHT!!!!!”

seriously your “article” is a waste of space and words. save all those words and all that space and just get to the point

“I tried to stalk and kidnap a child but the mom caught on and even told on me so now I’m mad and I’m going to slander her back”

simple and to the point.

Also kindly kill yourself.

Those of us who find your kind disgusting hope that when seeing their “leader” die the rest of the sheep on your “website” will follow and die too thus saving our kids.

Puzzled:
The rantings of a sanctimommy with a potty mouth. Charming! She would have been right at home during the Salem witch trials

misty henry-now now dear, what you should do is go find one of those nice people in the white uniforms that work where you live and say to them”nurse I believe my medications are off kilter and need to be adjusted”. they’ll be able to help you get your paranoid fantasies under control before you hurt yourself or others.

Katie, I saw this original post too (and I applaud your response!), my concern was the follow up posts that came from another mom, who wasn’t even there, who then started accusing the man of either being involved in human trafficking or “a terrorist”. She went on in another post to try to rally the local moms to boycott the mall to prevent our children from being bombed. What?! These mommas need to get out more.

Bravo to this Mom and shame on anyone who would vilify her for protecting her child. I wouldn’t have been able to show the restraint she did and would have gone after anyone that made me or my child(ren) feel unsafe. We know in this sad day and age to not trust anyone. I don’t care what color , sex or size this person is it was harassment and scary.

This story baffled me until I read all the comments and looked at the FB link to the police whatever.
There it is! Racism and paranoia.

People who post stuff like this (and the insane comments) should go on a list of people who are not allowed to own guns, drive after dark, or take their children across state lines without the other parent’s written permission. If they include an innocent person’s photo they should be placed on an online searchable offender registry for 10 years.

And maybe they should have a CPS case opened too. I mean, this person who could not handle herself in a toddler play area, who could not walk to her car alone, has custody of a small child 24/7. She needs supervision.

Thank God there are voices of reason in here.

Beth2, I absolutely will shame this woman. She is a paranoid attention whore and if she hadn’t started it none of this would have happened.

The City Council banned R/C aircraft, model rockets and drones from all City owned Parks and Property.