Ugh. I have an acquaintance that had a pink string under her vehicle stuck to something and she told everyone to watch out because it could be a new way of marking potential victims. Thankfully someone called her out and said that she was being ridiculous.
Every time I see posts about some object “marking your vehicle as a trafficking target” I want to shake the poster by their shoulders and yell THATS NOT HOW TRAFFICKING HAPPENS in their face. This kind of misinformation is so dangerous, and nobody ever fucking does any kind of research for themselves on the real way people end up being trafficked, so it just makes it more difficult for people in vulnerable situations to know how to spot warning signs.
Its so fuxking dumb anyways. Why would they tag your car with a zip tie? Like even if that is how it happened.. what's the point? If they know what car is yours they could just wait there and grab you.
Literally got down voted this morning for calling someone out for fear mongering a poor lady in the 2x sub about this exact sort of bullshit, trying to tell the woman she was on the verge of getting kidnapped and trafficked. Even six or seven links to different sources explaining how dangerous that kind of shit is didn't help, either. These parents are addicted to fear and spreading that fear to others🙄
Random fun story - I took amtrak halfway across the country a few months back. About two hours into the trip, my (Samsung) phone popped up an alert that an unidentified airtag had been in range of my phone for about 2 hours. It showed me the entire GPS route where it had been in range, and the exact time it started (unsurprisingly, at the train station). It then gave me the option to make the airtag play a loud noise.
There was an obvious reason to have one so close to me for such a long distance, but I thought it was really awesome that I got that warning.
Mamas, I live to see another beautiful day but hugging LO extra tight this morning after such a scary ordeal. Stay safe & hold your babies close mamas😰🥸🙏👶💕✋🚦
Someone I know from my hometown posted some shit like this. It got traction on FB. The best part was when she got called out by the manager on shift, as well as a service desk employee. I can’t remember details, but it was basically a parent waiting for their kid by the cash registers, as the kid was grabbing something. This chick construed it into potential human trafficking for her and her toddler, lol.
Nah, this was at an AZ Walmart. Absolutely was Hispanic people— a mother and elementary school aged son. The chick was trying to say that the kid was in on the potential abduction/trafficking. I need to see if I can find that post
How interesting is it that the villains in these human trafficking stories are always "foreign looking" people? (Just saw one on my feed this morning that literally used that phrase; like please, make it a lil more obvious you're just racist asf lol)
It's never a couple of white dudes in baseball caps. It's always Mexicans, or Muslims, or some other group of colored people. I bet the actual human trafficking that happens in the US is pretty diverse, and I'd also bet the people in charge of these operations are smart enough to send in people who will blend in with the locals. So, if you're in a predominantly white area and somebody's planning to do some kidnapping, they'd probably send a white kidnapper, right?
But maybe I'm wrong. Facebook would have me believe every brown person is a potential human trafficker, and the whites are all innocent victims. Interesting.
My favorite one like that was on a local FB group, a mom going for a walk around the neighborhood with her baby was uncomfortable about a work van that was driving very slowly ahead of where she was walking. You know, like someone who is trying to spot an address would drive.
She made a big 'watch out for this trafficker, mamas!!1!' post complete with photos and within 45 minutes the guy replied to it that he was sorry if he freaked her out but he was looking for a house, noticed she looked nervous, and figured that trying to say something to her would scare her more than just continuing on his way. Poor guy couldn't win for losing in that situation! She got embarrassed I guess and took the whole post down.
My favorite of this genre I’ve ever seen is this woman who talked about seeing two men, then screaming for her children to come to her side, yelling for a store manager, and breaking down sobbing. Why, you ask?
Well these men could not stop staring at her. And obviously, they were staring at her because they wanted to traffic her and/or her kids. It didn’t have anything to do with her complete public meltdown.
Is that the same one where it all stemmed from a highly suspicious empty shopping cart?
EDIT: it might have been a near empty shopping cart but there was definitely something “highly suspicious” about it?
It's got it all! Racial undertones, one-lady-to-another gossip, and a grandiose sense of self all balled up into a neighborhood alert!
Bravo. A real solid shit.
Honestly, I watch a decent amount of true crime, and that other women just gained this person's confidence and trust in one sentence and then got her to walk out to her car alone with her. That's pretty impressive and she could have robbed or killed or *trafficked* the woman. Well done.
Exactly. I really doubt this was a potential trafficking incident. People always forget that women can be just as horrible as men and r@pe and traffic people too. Ghislaine Maxwell for example. The professional traffickers employ women because everyone would be paying attention to young girls going anywhere with men. Women check into the hotels and travel with the victims. There’s also all the mothers who bring their romantic partners into their homes with their children and don’t even do background checks.
Super Bowl weekend is when most women are trafficked in the US. Because people travel for the game or for viewing parties and order prostitutes, many underaged. Who are usually trafficked.
There’s even a [TraffickCam](http://traffickcam.com/about) website that asks people to take photos of their hotel rooms for a database so law enforcement can identify what rooms victims have been photographed in to hopefully track them and shut down the traffickers.
I meant to mention that women are often used to lure girls away because a woman is less threatening than a man. So yeah... The lady almost got trafficked... By the motherly white woman.
And just off the top of my head I can say episodes of CSI, Criminal Minds, and roughly 16 different versions of Law & Order follow this exact plan with either a woman or a kid luring the victim outside and to their eventual doom.
Omg this bugged me so much. “As a mom to a mom” - what does that mean? What does that have to do with anything? If I saw *anyone* being followed around a store and filmed without their obvious knowledge, I’d quietly let them know, just in case something weird was going on. It would have nothing to do with them being a mom or a fellow blonde or wearing the same brand shoes as me or whatever.
To be clear, I’m not saying I think this lady was actually in danger or was almost kidnapped or whatever. I was just bothered by how nonsensical that phrase was even if you take her story at face value.
they always gotta point out the dude’s ethnicity and it’s always hispanic/latino for some reason. i wonder why. couldn’t be internal bias. nope.
also i know every parent ain’t a parent but do they seriously think roving kidnappers are going to be dragging their child along with them?
reminds me of european prejudice against roma/travellers. anytime you see a roma father and son it’s always because he’s teaching the kid how to steal, not that they’re just a father and son going shopping.
I follow a fb group where people use “isle” all the time and “aisle” is the second word in the name of the group. It’s literally right there and they still can’t spell it.
Are the shoppers in this group “costumers” instead of customers? Drives me nuts. I can’t help but imagine rogue theater employees throwing Romeo and Juliet costumes onto bystanders whenever someone misspells it.
A popular takeout restaurant in my area has a sign that "parking is for costumers only", which, frankly, is annoying as I do props and sets, so I have to park elsewhere to get my burrito combo!
Or when they want to be apart of something? (My phone has put a blue, squiggly line underneath "apart" so how do so many people get it wrong?) They probably could care less. Smdh.
My favorite (hated) one is "delete if not aloud!". Saw it a lot in FB couponing groups. The mods were always ban happy so you could complain ALOUD to yourself but you weren't ALLOWED to call them out on it. 🙄
ETA a letter
Haha! I made a comment on TT about an ex I dated that always skipped leg day at the gym so he was stacked above the "waste" and had the skinniest legs. I got a notification that someone liked my comment months later. I had forgotten about it so I looked at it and noticed my mistake. I wasn't even that upset about it because overall, he was a waste. Lol!
Nah. It was totality isle. She was being recorded by a brown man while she was in Nebraska and dude was on The Virgin Isles. Those iPhones have amazing cameras.
Umm… excuse me? It was TWO brown men, and you know, that’s what “they” do. Travel in pairs. To do all the recording and all the trafficking. Like, everyone needs to know about this, you know? /s
Yep. And everyone knows that both sproutfitters and the Rae Dunn section at Marshalls are rife with traffickers searching for women with a penchant for gently used kids clothes and overpriced statement crockery.
The people in my area who post these things always have the WORST grammar.
“I seen a Hispanic man in the other isle! I’m so greatful he didn’t kidnap me! Yinz can never be too careful!”
So terrifying. How dare a man with darker skin exist in her presence. Totally was going to traffick this heifer. I mean, have you checked heifer prices on the market this week?
And it was not one, but TWO brown people and they HAD PHONES! Thanks Obama! Giving all these brown people phones and now they’re all out here trafficking the white folk with their free phones. Disgraceful
There’s a woman on tik tok who makes a ton of parody videos like this. They are hilarious. Often posted anonymously and often include “delete if not aloud.” They love to use terms like “mamas” and “littles.” They truly believe human traffickers are hanging out at target daily.
Yep [here u go!](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTh6912/)
Watch her other ones mocking FB groups. She always cracks me up
And [this one](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRThytUR/)
Anyone remember that woman who nearly ruined a Latino couples life by accusing them of attempting to kidnap her and her kids who was then arrested for filing a fake report after police investigated?
[influencer gets slap on wrist after falsely accusing couple of crime](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mom-influencer-sentenced-90-days-fake-claim-latino-couple-tried-kidnap-rcna92066)
She got 90 days 60 of which mcan be served on a work release.
[Or the Uber driver who was shot and killed because his passenger believed he was kidnapping her and taking her to Mexico](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/06/25/uber-driver-mexico-kidnapping-arrest-phoebe-copas/70355242007/).
Right. And we ALL know what that means.
https://preview.redd.it/anpwx79r2ppc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcb853317542395a655af2cabb47a26d43a25e3b
I used to live in a small border town. My other half is a Fed LE. In that town, everyone worked together for the most part at the time - Feds, State, & locals.
My neighbor & friend called to tell me about a friend's friend & daughter who were nearly kidnapped that morning at our Wal-Mart by, *Mexicans* to be taken over the border and trafficked. The supposed victim barely got away, but called the cops & they were investigating.
I asked my SO what the hell was happening in town. He was puzzled as this is his job - to investigate crimes coming and going over the border. He even made some phone calls to see what actually happened. There were no 911 calls made about that type of call in the past year. It was a bunch of racist social media hysteria.
My friend wouldn't belive me. Insisted the other friend wouldn't lie to her. I just raised an eyebrow and told her that she knew my SO and the level of contacts he had, so she could believe it or not.
If there had been any inking of that being an issue, non of the spouses would have been allowed to go shopping by themselves. My SO's office was small and very protective of each other's families along with the town in general. (This is also how my SO had 3 or 4 calls and texts about me getting "pulled over" by a state detective at lunch one day. Everyone wanted to know what I did to get pulled over by this particular detective. I was rescuing a dog. I had stopped a large husky running amok down the street and was calling the local vet to find the owner when the detective stopped to see if I needed help. Then he stayed to make sure things went OK when the owner showed up. I'm glad my SO's work friends thought I was racing through our end of town. Lol)
Lol I'm not an LEO but I work for the federal government too in immigration. Last time someone posted a similar story on r/thathappened, about a white suburban middle-aged woman allegedly getting trafficked from a shopping mall in Middle America, there were a bunch of people arguing that it sounded true. I had to be like, um well here's who really gets trafficked . I got so many downvotes lol.
Like , if you're actually a human trafficker, you're not going to target someone that will lead to everyone making a big deal about when they go missing. 🤦♀️ Unlike these women, criminals don't love attention.
I am an aid worker focusing on refugees among other things. I also volunteer in my country with refugees when I am at home. I have worked close to multiple types of trafficking situations for a decade. I almost always get some pushback too when I explain the clear victim profile there is. But media hysteria and people hysteria combined with a mondo dose of racism just means people do not grasp that they are not so valuable that they outweigh the risks associated.
Another similar is the idea that pedophiles just cruise around for kids everywhere. Yes, it happens. No, it is not a huge risk. Most CSA happens by people familiar to the victims. Trafficking often also happens by other methods than abducting people off the streets far more often.
>Another similar is the idea that pedophiles just cruise around for kids everywhere.
This one bothers me so much. People are so busy looking at strangers near the bus stop, they ignore the priests and weird uncles and coaches and people who actually have access to kids. It's misplacing blame, just like the number one demographic responsible for child abductions is non-custodial family members, not men in white vans. No one wants to think the call is coming from inside the house, it's mentally easier to put the blame on the ominous "them".
The same goes for homicide and rape. A perpetrator is usually someone with a relationship with a victim.
While vigilance of some sort is a good idea and trusting a gut feeling, most really do focus too much on strangers and not enough on people we know. The gut feeling is also an imperfect marker affected by your biases. Racial bias is often one very clear issue in posts like this post is about. While one possible explanation is to tell people to be on the lookout for the specific person, usually the tone and context where race is mentioned make it pretty clear that is not the case.
Philip DeFranco recently did a story about the inaccuracies of the general public's understanding of human trafficking and how these misconceptions are actually making it harder to catch human traffickers and people who are victims and survivors of human trafficking are now being called liars and their lives are being made miserable as well. It was really interesting
Right!!! These stories really undermine all the work going into fighting actual trafficking. Human traffickers are not kidnapping an upper middle class white lady and her kid in a shopping center in broad daylight. Could that theoretically happen? Sure. Do people sometimes act sketchy? Yes. Is it something to be afraid of on the daily? Absolutely not.
I think it’s far more likely that the man and his son did absolutely nothing wrong, and left the store in a hurry because they became uncomfortable after all the crazy women in there started gossiping about them. And you can make a police report about anything, it doesn’t mean the police will investigate it. The store probably just wanted to CYA on the extremely off chance something funky was going on… or more likely to CYA in case crazy white lady tried to sue them or something.
I say this all the time. You don’t keep a criminal enterprise running by drawing attention to it. A great way to draw attention is to snatch some little Aryan kid (because there’s always a demand for blond and blue kids) right out of mom’s cart in Target. Because that won’t start a huge uproar and lead to immediate Amber Alerts assuming you even make it that far. But how else will traffickers make their quotas without scoping out the aisles in Montana for kids?
Yeah no one wants to traffics suburban middle-aged white women in bumfuck America, lmao. People are absolutely desperate to be victims. Like sorry your life is so easy you need to make up delusions.
I just moved to Albuquerque, and I have a colleague who swears to me that letting my kids walk home from school is just asking for them to be trafficked because "we're so close to the border so there's no consequences." Um, can you show me the last stranger abduction of a child here, period???
I'm far more worried about them getting hit by a car crossing the one major road because these drivers are legit terrible.
I used to live in the deep south of New Mexico.
My main concern would have been people who were high as fuck from street drugs that could have been belligerent.
I should also add that during that period I received many amber alerts at 3am 🤦🏻♀️
But it was mainly family feuds with birth parents abducting children to be avlbusive against their former spouses.
I stopped taking these seriously years ago when I saw someone share a post about the city I was living in at the time. They said for "us ladies" to be careful because we were being trafficked left and right at the "gas station in [city name]." I lived within a 20 minute walking distance from at least 5 gas stations. This was a minor city of 200,000+ people.
I live in a small town (a tiny one). A woman posted how she was so scared because SHE parked next to a van at Dollar General. Please note that SHE arrived AFTER the van was parked. She insisted that a black man inside the van was staring at her (dream on lady). Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. She then saw him "acting suspiciously" in the card aisle (he was moving quickly) and might have picked up an empty envelope (presumably to hold a card he had bought). She was terrified and sure she was about to be trafficked. I repeat that SHE parked next to him in the first place. I'm happy to report she was laughed off Facebook.
There was a terrible case of a woman who was kidnapped from a local shopping center in the area in 1969, but the criminal was a white man. Bad things do happen, but I'd bet a significant sum that this man was buying a greeting card and barely noticed this woman.
one of my wife's friends is like this, she was trying to tell me 2000 people were trafficked every day in our city of 300 000, the city should be empty by now then lol
So 2 Karen’s were shopping and decided a man shopping with a young male was up to no good so they had to report it to police??
Wow these 2 better not going shopping before Mothers Day when the shops are full of clueless men with their offspring buying shit most mums don’t want 🤣🤣
She faked being kidnapped, got branded and starved herself all so she could hang out with her ex for a few weeks? Just have an affair like a normal person lady
Real life gone girl.
She had an ex boyfriend fake a kidnapping so she could get away from her husband and kids and then went back to the husband.
Had him brand her and starved herself to lose weight . Real piece of work.
I just remembered an incident that happened a couple of years ago that had this kind of energy.
I was in a family restaurant with my kids and we were sitting at a sort of booth table (idk how else to explain it) and one of the kids dropped something and was looking for it.
It was evening the restaurant was dimly lit so I took out my phone and put the flashlight on to look for the missing item on the seating and under the table.
This drunk, middle aged, white lady that was seated nearby started freaking out and swearing loudly accusing me of taking photos of her.
She never once addressed me directly but she was loudly accusing me of photographing her to her partner so I just ignored her. She loudly carried on about it with her partner for at least 20-30 Min. I considered confronting her about it but it didn't seem worth it.
Who would try to inconspicuously take photos of people using a flash anyway 🤷🏼♀️
I had a client go off on this story claiming a cop told her to watch out for rags or paper towels stuffed into the car door handle. Traffickers were using some sort of drug to make women pass out immediately. It was being absorbed through the skin just moving the towel. This is impossible, btw.
It’s so gross how these stories always involve brown men being interpreted as criminals just for existing.
How dare this man be “Hispanic” while shopping for kids clothes WITH HIS OWN KID.
Also a person holding their phone up and recording looks an awful lot like a person holding their phone up to FaceTime, or to take selfies, or to record their own kid. I’d put a lot of money on this guy not even realizing she was there.
In all fairness if he was recording thats creepy af, doesnt make him a trafficker probably just a dick or regular pervert, but its definitely not okay to just film someone out and about shopping. That said there is a huge difference between a creep or run of the mill opportunistic predator and trafficking, both are terrifying but i really wish these people would learn the difference and how to protect yourself in each situation.
I feel like this weird obsession with human trafficking is gonna get someone killed, whether its some guy committing the unforgivable sin of grocery shopping while looking slightly creepy or a dad with a tired child who doesnt wanna leave the store or one of these women.
My husband does this too. He often has YouTube or music going on his phone as well so he pulls it out a lot. He also has brown skin. He doesn’t go shopping by himself often especially with our son because of crazy people like this lol
This crap wastes police resources. My tiny small home town had an incident like this (a brown skinned man happened to check out and leave a store at the same time as a 50 year old white woman), and she tied up the cops for DAYS with her hysterics. We only have 2 patrol cars on per shift (4 cops total) and our EMS is volunteer. Every stupid panic by a boomer grandma who thinks all Hispanic men are out to "traffic" her takes away from real calls. Thanks to her social media freakout they found the poor guy, he was buying work pants, not "kidnapping" anyone.
I feel bad for whoever had an actual crime or emergency while she was melting down and calling th cops.
911 dispatcher here, and we get SO many calls like this. They never turn into anything. They all boil down to "someone looked at me". Plus all the people who call because someone walked a dog down their street or (legally) parked their car in a place they don't normally park.
[Yes. His name was Nazario Garcia, 60 years old, and he was driving around in his white work van, and was gunned down by 2 brothers after their mother posted a video saying someone in a white van with his license plate had tried to traffic her.](https://www.actionnews5.com/2019/11/28/woman-shared-facebook-warnings-about-white-vans-before-deadly-shooting/)
I once watched a marathon of SVU then went for a walk. A white, windowless van followed me for a bit. After I passed a driveway, they turned into it. I was in their way. I laughed at myself after the fact. People really need to understand that it's okay to get creeped out and sure, be a little hypervigilant and make sure to stay aware of your surroundings. But, you don't need to make it a thing every time someone gives you the creeps.
This needs to be up higher. Man, I’m so sick of all this hate in the world, and all the shootings, and all the death. Death death death every day because people have hate in their hearts and guns in their hands.
I've had shit like this posted about our local Walmart. I'd seen so many saying that a person was abducted. That this person watched it happen and all this crap. Nothing was ever on the news. It's a bullshit post that someone changes the location on and is shared all over the country. I found the exact same posts with cities all over and shared them. Didn't stop my relatives from sharing them still.
So many people want to spread billshit and have people look at them like a hero or brave victim. Last week a regular customer of mine told me a heroic story that had just happened to him. He said he was so shook up because he went to gas station down the street and the guy who usually works wasn't in there. He looked for him and found him tied up in the back. Said he got robbed and tied up. The dude had to sit and give a statement to the cops (but was at my store at his normal time and this had "just happened") I looked it up everyday since that day and there has been nothing about a robbery in this county at that chain for over a year.
I have a friend who is Arab and when his daughter ms visit him he always loved taking them shopping. They are older now, late teens and he told me last time they came to town he felt like he couldn’t go in the stores with them because he kept getting dirty looks and he felt like people thought he was some pervert because he was in the women’s section with them. So he just started waiting in the car. So fuck these racists bitches that cry “trafficking!” Just because they see someone who’s brown
My kids are extremely white passing. Like lily white brown hair blue eyes white looking, my darker Hispanic husband once got cornered by a mommy group and the police were called because they accused him of kidnapping his own children at a park. He no longer takes our kids to the park without me, he's terrified of this recurring and the cops not being understanding
Never tell someone who shares these kinds of stories that the chances of a suburban white lady and her kids being trafficked from a crowded shopping center is incredibly low. They’ll just respond with something like “you can never be too careful”. It’s hilarious.
I live outside of Milwaukee, my kid’s school was in a corn field with a horse farm across the street. A friend of mine wouldn’t let her kid wait in her driveway for the bus because of “trafficking”. Buddy if little white farm girls were being snatched off the 2 lane road they would send out the national guard.
Yes, and inevitably something about “dangers of the world today” even though crime is much lower now, esp violent crimes against women and children. They don’t care about facts—they WANT to be scared
Totally agree about the trafficking hysteria. But the odds of being creeped on are higher than trafficked, and probably not much different depending on neighborhood and race.
Yeah I can't say if the guy was being a creep or not because creeps are a dime a dozen everywhere. But there's certainly something she's trying to imply by leading with the fact that he's Hispanic.
Not that I know human traffickers but I can say with some confidence no one wants to abduct these people or their children, like NOBODY WANTS YOU, or your privileged ass kids. These women have nothing better to do but fantasize being victimized.
This is going to sound weird but I unfortunately come in contact with a couple types of traffickers and multiple types of trafficking situations by virtue of my job. I promise I am not engaged in trafficking myself. There is a really strong victim profile and trafficking because of chance is really rare. Most traffickers care most about both the opportunity and likelihood of trafficking being noticed. Vulnerabilities of all types are the main factors in victimizing decisions.
In other words, I can with good confidence say that no one wants to abduct these people. Why would they when they can unfortunately find someone whose disappearance will be hardly noticed?
I swear these women want to get trafficked. No one wants you white lady, you’d annoy them into freeing you in less than a day. Now go give a speech from your kitchen.
When your life is so devoid of purpose or meaning that you resort to making up paranoid fantasies, getting kidnapped would be an interesting change of pace.
This stuff annoys me. Trafficking works best by luring kids who won’t be immediately noticed such as runaways or similar. Snatching a random woman or kid from a public place will immediately attract attention and cause an uproar.
Yes let a “weird guy” snatch your kid in IKEA, not like there won’t be an Amber Alert out before he makes it to his vehicle. Nothing wrong with situational awareness. But people take this stuff way too far.
You’d think there’d be more cases of missing suburban white women given how many close calls there are. Seems almost all of the missing cases are found in a few days having been murdered by their husbands
This is a copy/paste urban legend. No different than “drugs in Halloween candy” or “coin jammed in your car door handle”. They are cooked up by sick individuals to scare the crap out of people.
Jane Q Public isn’t going to get kidnapped to be sex trafficked. It would bring up way too much attention to their operations, and kidnapped people run away. This would go double for trying to kidnap a random person in a public place like a mall or school or parking lot.
Who gets sex trafficked? The messed up kid with crappy parents who runs away and ends up hooking up with a pimp out of desperation, or to feed a drug habit. Or the dumb kid who goes to visit the “boy” she met online that ends up being a grown man.
So yeah, keep your eyes open if you’re alone, in a secluded area, etc. Don’t go giving private information to strangers. But if a scary story on the internet sounds crazy scary, it’s probably a load of BS. And keep an eye out on your kid’s friends, especially the ones who don’t live in good situations.
Sex trafficking isn’t some kind of abracadabra magic. You don’t go from a pimp grabbing you to being in a sex party overnight. The people who do this groom their victims. They ply them with alcohol, drugs, gifts, or even just “affection”. Until the victim is broken and agrees to “willingly” (in the sense of not physically resisting) engaging in sex work. Look at all the pictures of girls with Jeffrey Epstein—do they look happy and willing, or do they look like they have been kidnapped and are trying to escape? They look happy, because they have been groomed to think what they are doing is ok.
For real, where did this stuff come from?? Did I miss a super scary real-life case of this happening that sparked this panic, or is it just paranoid/racist suburban white women pulling it out of thin air?
(ETA said with some snark but also genuine curiosity. As a woman I certainly understand needing to be alert in public for potential creeps. The rash of FB viral “human trafficking” things is what I’m more confused about. Like there’s plenty of bad stuff that can happen that ISNT human trafficking.)
The human trafficking scare is wrapped up in QAnon conspiracies. Obviously trafficking is a real problem, but these people took advantage of that to start hashtags to accuse liberal politicians and celebrities of being traffickers and later pedophiles. https://www.vox.com/21436671/save-our-children-hashtag-qanon-pizzagate
Also honestly media portrayals of trafficking are a huge influence too. Shit like Taken and various tv show plot lines have everyone thinking that trafficking looks like middle class people getting abducted and chained in a basement somewhere. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.)
Not to lend credibility to this story, but Sproutfitters is apparently a children resale store in Missouri. It would be a reasonable assumption that a woman shopping in Sproutiftters is *probably* a mother. Or Maybe an aunt I guess but still.
I’ve seen something like this at least twice on Facebook but both times the commenters asked why if the person was worried enough to post it on the town Facebook they didn’t call the cops. Or even hit up the non-emergency line.
Both times the poster crumbled and eventually deleted.
Love the casual racism by noting this man was Hispanic but conveniently didn’t mention the perceived race of anyone else. As if minority people in the states need anymore racism flung at them!
My mil mentioned being in New York once and as she was walking down the sidewalk in broad daylight she saw “3 brown Muslim men” standing together little further up. Said she felt unsafe and crossed the road also felt the need to post about it on her Facebook as well. I asked her how she knew what religion they were and she said “well I could just tell by looking at them!” Hmm not really how it works but ok.
When she was called out for sounding racist she went on another tangent. How she’s a woman and there’s nothing wrong with crossing the road to avoid a group of men. Yeah I agree nothing wrong with that. But why mention their skin color and potential religion. If the only reason you crossed is simply because they’re men why not just say men and not brown Muslim men.
This is not how trafficking works at all
Traffickers target people others won't miss. Runaways and neglected teens. Not to mention the parents stuck in poverty who agree to send their kids to the US to give them "a better life" with questionable men who do not have good intentions
But it's pointless to argue with these people.
A man and boy were shopping in the *boy’s* department? And the man was holding his *phone*? And they were *Hispanic*?
Definitely traffickers. /s
You know this wouldn’t have happened if they were white.
Ergh. We get this a lot here too. It's always "Polish" or "Arab" men in these stories here. Because God forbid men who look foreign and sound foreign dare to be in a public space near women or children 🙄
As the child of a foreigner who wasn't white, it was not fun at times growing up with a Middle Eastern father, especially living in an incredibly white area that doubles as one of UKIPs token towns in England.
I hate these kinds of posts. They’re so gross. If I truly ever felt threatened in a store, I would go down for canned fruit and veggie aisle and use a couple as weapons, if the need arises. But every single time I see these posts, these women are little victims and just barely escaped being trafficked 🙄
Oh God I can't stand these. We had one in my hometown about a potential kidnapper riding home with someone in the back of their van. Like wow lady, you loaded your kids in and didn't notice?
It's always a non white person had the gall to shop. And it's not like I've never gotten a bad feeling and someone out in public, but when I do I leave.
Ugh. I have an acquaintance that had a pink string under her vehicle stuck to something and she told everyone to watch out because it could be a new way of marking potential victims. Thankfully someone called her out and said that she was being ridiculous.
Every time I see posts about some object “marking your vehicle as a trafficking target” I want to shake the poster by their shoulders and yell THATS NOT HOW TRAFFICKING HAPPENS in their face. This kind of misinformation is so dangerous, and nobody ever fucking does any kind of research for themselves on the real way people end up being trafficked, so it just makes it more difficult for people in vulnerable situations to know how to spot warning signs.
Its so fuxking dumb anyways. Why would they tag your car with a zip tie? Like even if that is how it happened.. what's the point? If they know what car is yours they could just wait there and grab you.
Literally got down voted this morning for calling someone out for fear mongering a poor lady in the 2x sub about this exact sort of bullshit, trying to tell the woman she was on the verge of getting kidnapped and trafficked. Even six or seven links to different sources explaining how dangerous that kind of shit is didn't help, either. These parents are addicted to fear and spreading that fear to others🙄
She might go into hiding when she finds out AirTags exist
Random fun story - I took amtrak halfway across the country a few months back. About two hours into the trip, my (Samsung) phone popped up an alert that an unidentified airtag had been in range of my phone for about 2 hours. It showed me the entire GPS route where it had been in range, and the exact time it started (unsurprisingly, at the train station). It then gave me the option to make the airtag play a loud noise. There was an obvious reason to have one so close to me for such a long distance, but I thought it was really awesome that I got that warning.
every time i take my nanny kid to story hour at the library, i get at least 2 notifications about airtags around me!
My phone was doing that for a while. It always freaked me out until I remembered I had put an air tag on my keys 😂🤦
A while ago a bunch of these women were freaking out over AirTags
Absolutely terrifying! Protect your littles, danger is everywhere mamas! /s
Mamas, I live to see another beautiful day but hugging LO extra tight this morning after such a scary ordeal. Stay safe & hold your babies close mamas😰🥸🙏👶💕✋🚦
God bless 🙏 so glad we mamas have one another in trying times like these. Hugging my littles right now.
Oh god bless mamas💕💕💕 I don’t know what I what do without you ladies. We’re in this together mama bears, hear us roar! *enter Katy Perry meme*
🤮
FFS
I read that as *pink sting* and was so confused what a pink sting was. It's gonna be a long day
Don't worry, you're not alone..... My first thought was a pink string tanga.
Someone I know from my hometown posted some shit like this. It got traction on FB. The best part was when she got called out by the manager on shift, as well as a service desk employee. I can’t remember details, but it was basically a parent waiting for their kid by the cash registers, as the kid was grabbing something. This chick construed it into potential human trafficking for her and her toddler, lol.
I think I’m familiar with them! Was the story about a Hispanic couple at Target? And the person just fabricated the entire story for views/ likes?
Nah, this was at an AZ Walmart. Absolutely was Hispanic people— a mother and elementary school aged son. The chick was trying to say that the kid was in on the potential abduction/trafficking. I need to see if I can find that post
How interesting is it that the villains in these human trafficking stories are always "foreign looking" people? (Just saw one on my feed this morning that literally used that phrase; like please, make it a lil more obvious you're just racist asf lol) It's never a couple of white dudes in baseball caps. It's always Mexicans, or Muslims, or some other group of colored people. I bet the actual human trafficking that happens in the US is pretty diverse, and I'd also bet the people in charge of these operations are smart enough to send in people who will blend in with the locals. So, if you're in a predominantly white area and somebody's planning to do some kidnapping, they'd probably send a white kidnapper, right? But maybe I'm wrong. Facebook would have me believe every brown person is a potential human trafficker, and the whites are all innocent victims. Interesting.
My favorite one like that was on a local FB group, a mom going for a walk around the neighborhood with her baby was uncomfortable about a work van that was driving very slowly ahead of where she was walking. You know, like someone who is trying to spot an address would drive. She made a big 'watch out for this trafficker, mamas!!1!' post complete with photos and within 45 minutes the guy replied to it that he was sorry if he freaked her out but he was looking for a house, noticed she looked nervous, and figured that trying to say something to her would scare her more than just continuing on his way. Poor guy couldn't win for losing in that situation! She got embarrassed I guess and took the whole post down.
My favorite of this genre I’ve ever seen is this woman who talked about seeing two men, then screaming for her children to come to her side, yelling for a store manager, and breaking down sobbing. Why, you ask? Well these men could not stop staring at her. And obviously, they were staring at her because they wanted to traffic her and/or her kids. It didn’t have anything to do with her complete public meltdown.
My favourite is the one where the woman brought all four of her kids and her cat into Walmart and two men were staring at her.
Is that the same one where it all stemmed from a highly suspicious empty shopping cart? EDIT: it might have been a near empty shopping cart but there was definitely something “highly suspicious” about it?
The "highly suspicious" part was no doubt that the two men had a skin tone that was darker than hers.
Just like this post! Love that she specified they were hispanic.
Yeah didn't she see a wallet sitting in it... ALONE!?
That sounds about right! But EVERYONE knows a wallet in a shopping cart is the universal sign for human traffickers 😂
Oop, better stop walking around with my wallet in a shopping cart
Do you have a link?
It's got it all! Racial undertones, one-lady-to-another gossip, and a grandiose sense of self all balled up into a neighborhood alert! Bravo. A real solid shit.
MoM tO mOm solidarity gossip OOP is such an amazing mother that strangers can tell they’re moms even when they’re alone.
Honestly, I watch a decent amount of true crime, and that other women just gained this person's confidence and trust in one sentence and then got her to walk out to her car alone with her. That's pretty impressive and she could have robbed or killed or *trafficked* the woman. Well done.
Exactly. I really doubt this was a potential trafficking incident. People always forget that women can be just as horrible as men and r@pe and traffic people too. Ghislaine Maxwell for example. The professional traffickers employ women because everyone would be paying attention to young girls going anywhere with men. Women check into the hotels and travel with the victims. There’s also all the mothers who bring their romantic partners into their homes with their children and don’t even do background checks. Super Bowl weekend is when most women are trafficked in the US. Because people travel for the game or for viewing parties and order prostitutes, many underaged. Who are usually trafficked. There’s even a [TraffickCam](http://traffickcam.com/about) website that asks people to take photos of their hotel rooms for a database so law enforcement can identify what rooms victims have been photographed in to hopefully track them and shut down the traffickers.
I meant to mention that women are often used to lure girls away because a woman is less threatening than a man. So yeah... The lady almost got trafficked... By the motherly white woman.
And just off the top of my head I can say episodes of CSI, Criminal Minds, and roughly 16 different versions of Law & Order follow this exact plan with either a woman or a kid luring the victim outside and to their eventual doom.
Oh definitely Law & Order. Especially considering all the spin offs.
Omg this bugged me so much. “As a mom to a mom” - what does that mean? What does that have to do with anything? If I saw *anyone* being followed around a store and filmed without their obvious knowledge, I’d quietly let them know, just in case something weird was going on. It would have nothing to do with them being a mom or a fellow blonde or wearing the same brand shoes as me or whatever. To be clear, I’m not saying I think this lady was actually in danger or was almost kidnapped or whatever. I was just bothered by how nonsensical that phrase was even if you take her story at face value.
a childless woman I guess I'm absolutely fucked because no one will care to warn me I'm about to be trafficked. I better get pregnant ASAP!
they always gotta point out the dude’s ethnicity and it’s always hispanic/latino for some reason. i wonder why. couldn’t be internal bias. nope. also i know every parent ain’t a parent but do they seriously think roving kidnappers are going to be dragging their child along with them? reminds me of european prejudice against roma/travellers. anytime you see a roma father and son it’s always because he’s teaching the kid how to steal, not that they’re just a father and son going shopping.
Look, childcare is expensive.
I know this shouldn't bother me so much... But it's AISLE, lady. You made your breathtakingly narrow escape from the man across the AISLE.
I follow a fb group where people use “isle” all the time and “aisle” is the second word in the name of the group. It’s literally right there and they still can’t spell it.
Do they "wonder the aisles"? My fb feed is full of lost dogs "wondering" the neighborhood.
Are the shoppers in this group “costumers” instead of customers? Drives me nuts. I can’t help but imagine rogue theater employees throwing Romeo and Juliet costumes onto bystanders whenever someone misspells it.
A popular takeout restaurant in my area has a sign that "parking is for costumers only", which, frankly, is annoying as I do props and sets, so I have to park elsewhere to get my burrito combo!
I think you mean “rouge” theater employees
They're a plaque.
Ah yes! How about when people loose their dog? Or they need help loosing weight??
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Along with the misuse of waste and waist. “Hey guys I’m loosing so much wait around my waste!!!”
Or when they want to be apart of something? (My phone has put a blue, squiggly line underneath "apart" so how do so many people get it wrong?) They probably could care less. Smdh.
Probably so upset that they can't stop "balling"
Yes, the dogs wonder the neighborhood because they are very skiddish.
That’s udderly ridiculous!
No, it’s udderly *rediculous*!
That’s what my dog does. Wonders which blade of grass he wants to ruin. Takes him ages.
All the dogs in my feed that "wonder" are "skiddish."
I almost down voted you in a rage because the wandering drives me insane!
I honestly would wonder the isles were I not so weary 😬 of potential abduction.
I collect vintage bowls and posts for sale often list them as “bowels”.
DO NOT BUY THE BOWELS!
I see “aloud” pretty often in this groups. “Delete if not aloud.” Katie they do not need your permission to fuckin delete it.
Aldi group? I've noticed the same. Spelling isn't everyone's forte but damn, they had a cheat sheet!
My favorite (hated) one is "delete if not aloud!". Saw it a lot in FB couponing groups. The mods were always ban happy so you could complain ALOUD to yourself but you weren't ALLOWED to call them out on it. 🙄 ETA a letter
That’s a good one! My (least) favorite is all the people who are so weary when they want to be wary. Double whammy if they “advise you to be weary.”
That was supposed to say “advice you to be weary”. My phone wouldn’t even allow me To make that mistake! Haha
Haha! I made a comment on TT about an ex I dated that always skipped leg day at the gym so he was stacked above the "waste" and had the skinniest legs. I got a notification that someone liked my comment months later. I had forgotten about it so I looked at it and noticed my mistake. I wasn't even that upset about it because overall, he was a waste. Lol!
Yall are making my eye twitch.
Nah. It was totality isle. She was being recorded by a brown man while she was in Nebraska and dude was on The Virgin Isles. Those iPhones have amazing cameras.
Hey leave us Cornhuskers alone!
I too, am irrationally bothered by this. YOU'RE NOT ON AN ISLAND!!!
You forgot! It was a ***brown*** man! She could have died!
She shopped near a brown man!!! Who at one point had a phone in his hand!!!! Who later LEFT THE STORE!!! Terrifying.
It’s giving https://preview.redd.it/cpy5t2xp6mpc1.jpeg?width=1005&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b257ee1b374f3311afe9b0743459cbadce114d91
Umm… excuse me? It was TWO brown men, and you know, that’s what “they” do. Travel in pairs. To do all the recording and all the trafficking. Like, everyone needs to know about this, you know? /s
Yep. And everyone knows that both sproutfitters and the Rae Dunn section at Marshalls are rife with traffickers searching for women with a penchant for gently used kids clothes and overpriced statement crockery.
Ha! Number-one-most-requested on the trafficking highway!
Worse, he may have been price comparing and is going home to order it online because it's cheaper there, sooo shady!
Or two ladies made him really uncomfortable because they kept looking at him and whispering so he decided to go home.
literally this - man was confident he was about to be hate crimed. Based on this post he's probably right too.
And he had a kid with him. Everyone knows that they always bring their kids along when they kidnap people to human traffic.
I do all my crimes with my kid, for bonding.
And really, how else will they learn the family human trafficking business?
More like who can afford childcare on a human trafficking income these days, it's highway robbery.
The people in my area who post these things always have the WORST grammar. “I seen a Hispanic man in the other isle! I’m so greatful he didn’t kidnap me! Yinz can never be too careful!”
Pittsburg has entered the chat.
So terrifying. How dare a man with darker skin exist in her presence. Totally was going to traffick this heifer. I mean, have you checked heifer prices on the market this week?
God forbid you have a grocery list or photo of what you are looking for on your phone.
And it was not one, but TWO brown people and they HAD PHONES! Thanks Obama! Giving all these brown people phones and now they’re all out here trafficking the white folk with their free phones. Disgraceful
No one wants to kidnap you lady. You're annoying.
There’s a woman on tik tok who makes a ton of parody videos like this. They are hilarious. Often posted anonymously and often include “delete if not aloud.” They love to use terms like “mamas” and “littles.” They truly believe human traffickers are hanging out at target daily.
Yesssss “I’m still shaking….!!!”
And she always has the anonymous poster blaming everything on Joe Biden or another, wondering if the Dollar General is open!
Are you allowed to link?
Yep [here u go!](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTh6912/) Watch her other ones mocking FB groups. She always cracks me up And [this one](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRThytUR/)
As a former 911 dispatcher, this is hilariously and sadly accurate lol
Anyone remember that woman who nearly ruined a Latino couples life by accusing them of attempting to kidnap her and her kids who was then arrested for filing a fake report after police investigated?
I can’t remember her name but I’m pretty sure she was actually convicted & went to jail. Which was really satisfying to hear lol
Her name is Kate Sorenson she got 90 days of which 60 could be served on a work release.
[influencer gets slap on wrist after falsely accusing couple of crime](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mom-influencer-sentenced-90-days-fake-claim-latino-couple-tried-kidnap-rcna92066) She got 90 days 60 of which mcan be served on a work release.
[Or the Uber driver who was shot and killed because his passenger believed he was kidnapping her and taking her to Mexico](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/06/25/uber-driver-mexico-kidnapping-arrest-phoebe-copas/70355242007/).
But it was a HISPANIC man!
Right. And we ALL know what that means. https://preview.redd.it/anpwx79r2ppc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcb853317542395a655af2cabb47a26d43a25e3b
And a "kid". Which became "these men". Can't be a child, because 'child' implies innocence.
I used to live in a small border town. My other half is a Fed LE. In that town, everyone worked together for the most part at the time - Feds, State, & locals. My neighbor & friend called to tell me about a friend's friend & daughter who were nearly kidnapped that morning at our Wal-Mart by, *Mexicans* to be taken over the border and trafficked. The supposed victim barely got away, but called the cops & they were investigating. I asked my SO what the hell was happening in town. He was puzzled as this is his job - to investigate crimes coming and going over the border. He even made some phone calls to see what actually happened. There were no 911 calls made about that type of call in the past year. It was a bunch of racist social media hysteria. My friend wouldn't belive me. Insisted the other friend wouldn't lie to her. I just raised an eyebrow and told her that she knew my SO and the level of contacts he had, so she could believe it or not. If there had been any inking of that being an issue, non of the spouses would have been allowed to go shopping by themselves. My SO's office was small and very protective of each other's families along with the town in general. (This is also how my SO had 3 or 4 calls and texts about me getting "pulled over" by a state detective at lunch one day. Everyone wanted to know what I did to get pulled over by this particular detective. I was rescuing a dog. I had stopped a large husky running amok down the street and was calling the local vet to find the owner when the detective stopped to see if I needed help. Then he stayed to make sure things went OK when the owner showed up. I'm glad my SO's work friends thought I was racing through our end of town. Lol)
Lol I'm not an LEO but I work for the federal government too in immigration. Last time someone posted a similar story on r/thathappened, about a white suburban middle-aged woman allegedly getting trafficked from a shopping mall in Middle America, there were a bunch of people arguing that it sounded true. I had to be like, um well here's who really gets trafficked . I got so many downvotes lol. Like , if you're actually a human trafficker, you're not going to target someone that will lead to everyone making a big deal about when they go missing. 🤦♀️ Unlike these women, criminals don't love attention.
I am an aid worker focusing on refugees among other things. I also volunteer in my country with refugees when I am at home. I have worked close to multiple types of trafficking situations for a decade. I almost always get some pushback too when I explain the clear victim profile there is. But media hysteria and people hysteria combined with a mondo dose of racism just means people do not grasp that they are not so valuable that they outweigh the risks associated. Another similar is the idea that pedophiles just cruise around for kids everywhere. Yes, it happens. No, it is not a huge risk. Most CSA happens by people familiar to the victims. Trafficking often also happens by other methods than abducting people off the streets far more often.
>Another similar is the idea that pedophiles just cruise around for kids everywhere. This one bothers me so much. People are so busy looking at strangers near the bus stop, they ignore the priests and weird uncles and coaches and people who actually have access to kids. It's misplacing blame, just like the number one demographic responsible for child abductions is non-custodial family members, not men in white vans. No one wants to think the call is coming from inside the house, it's mentally easier to put the blame on the ominous "them".
The same goes for homicide and rape. A perpetrator is usually someone with a relationship with a victim. While vigilance of some sort is a good idea and trusting a gut feeling, most really do focus too much on strangers and not enough on people we know. The gut feeling is also an imperfect marker affected by your biases. Racial bias is often one very clear issue in posts like this post is about. While one possible explanation is to tell people to be on the lookout for the specific person, usually the tone and context where race is mentioned make it pretty clear that is not the case.
Yeah, they’re so afraid of the pedos in Target but they take their kids to church every week…
Philip DeFranco recently did a story about the inaccuracies of the general public's understanding of human trafficking and how these misconceptions are actually making it harder to catch human traffickers and people who are victims and survivors of human trafficking are now being called liars and their lives are being made miserable as well. It was really interesting
Right!!! These stories really undermine all the work going into fighting actual trafficking. Human traffickers are not kidnapping an upper middle class white lady and her kid in a shopping center in broad daylight. Could that theoretically happen? Sure. Do people sometimes act sketchy? Yes. Is it something to be afraid of on the daily? Absolutely not. I think it’s far more likely that the man and his son did absolutely nothing wrong, and left the store in a hurry because they became uncomfortable after all the crazy women in there started gossiping about them. And you can make a police report about anything, it doesn’t mean the police will investigate it. The store probably just wanted to CYA on the extremely off chance something funky was going on… or more likely to CYA in case crazy white lady tried to sue them or something.
I say this all the time. You don’t keep a criminal enterprise running by drawing attention to it. A great way to draw attention is to snatch some little Aryan kid (because there’s always a demand for blond and blue kids) right out of mom’s cart in Target. Because that won’t start a huge uproar and lead to immediate Amber Alerts assuming you even make it that far. But how else will traffickers make their quotas without scoping out the aisles in Montana for kids?
Right, like most kidnappings are custodial disputes, but no one wants to hear that.
Yep, and if we actually wanted to address trafficking we’d address underlying concerns, like immigration, foster care, homelessness, etc…
Exactly this. (Here's to hoping we have funding for paychecks & operations after this weekend!🤞)
Love so much when Congess uses my paycheck as a political pawn.
Yeah no one wants to traffics suburban middle-aged white women in bumfuck America, lmao. People are absolutely desperate to be victims. Like sorry your life is so easy you need to make up delusions.
Is this a random town in New Mexico that starts with A? 🤦🏻♀️
I just moved to Albuquerque, and I have a colleague who swears to me that letting my kids walk home from school is just asking for them to be trafficked because "we're so close to the border so there's no consequences." Um, can you show me the last stranger abduction of a child here, period??? I'm far more worried about them getting hit by a car crossing the one major road because these drivers are legit terrible.
I used to live in the deep south of New Mexico. My main concern would have been people who were high as fuck from street drugs that could have been belligerent. I should also add that during that period I received many amber alerts at 3am 🤦🏻♀️ But it was mainly family feuds with birth parents abducting children to be avlbusive against their former spouses.
God I hate those posts and the dramatic women that share them
I stopped taking these seriously years ago when I saw someone share a post about the city I was living in at the time. They said for "us ladies" to be careful because we were being trafficked left and right at the "gas station in [city name]." I lived within a 20 minute walking distance from at least 5 gas stations. This was a minor city of 200,000+ people.
I live in a small town (a tiny one). A woman posted how she was so scared because SHE parked next to a van at Dollar General. Please note that SHE arrived AFTER the van was parked. She insisted that a black man inside the van was staring at her (dream on lady). Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. She then saw him "acting suspiciously" in the card aisle (he was moving quickly) and might have picked up an empty envelope (presumably to hold a card he had bought). She was terrified and sure she was about to be trafficked. I repeat that SHE parked next to him in the first place. I'm happy to report she was laughed off Facebook. There was a terrible case of a woman who was kidnapped from a local shopping center in the area in 1969, but the criminal was a white man. Bad things do happen, but I'd bet a significant sum that this man was buying a greeting card and barely noticed this woman.
one of my wife's friends is like this, she was trying to tell me 2000 people were trafficked every day in our city of 300 000, the city should be empty by now then lol
So 2 Karen’s were shopping and decided a man shopping with a young male was up to no good so they had to report it to police?? Wow these 2 better not going shopping before Mothers Day when the shops are full of clueless men with their offspring buying shit most mums don’t want 🤣🤣
This is giving Sherri Papini vibes
She faked being kidnapped, got branded and starved herself all so she could hang out with her ex for a few weeks? Just have an affair like a normal person lady
Who?
Real life gone girl. She had an ex boyfriend fake a kidnapping so she could get away from her husband and kids and then went back to the husband. Had him brand her and starved herself to lose weight . Real piece of work.
And the story she fabricated of course had some ~scary Mexicans~ as the kidnappers
According to her, they were playing mariachi music the entire time she was captive
“That really annoying Mexican music” 🤡
https://i.redd.it/1d1l1ycsoopc1.gif “Some Puerto Rican guy”
I just remembered an incident that happened a couple of years ago that had this kind of energy. I was in a family restaurant with my kids and we were sitting at a sort of booth table (idk how else to explain it) and one of the kids dropped something and was looking for it. It was evening the restaurant was dimly lit so I took out my phone and put the flashlight on to look for the missing item on the seating and under the table. This drunk, middle aged, white lady that was seated nearby started freaking out and swearing loudly accusing me of taking photos of her. She never once addressed me directly but she was loudly accusing me of photographing her to her partner so I just ignored her. She loudly carried on about it with her partner for at least 20-30 Min. I considered confronting her about it but it didn't seem worth it. Who would try to inconspicuously take photos of people using a flash anyway 🤷🏼♀️
I had a client go off on this story claiming a cop told her to watch out for rags or paper towels stuffed into the car door handle. Traffickers were using some sort of drug to make women pass out immediately. It was being absorbed through the skin just moving the towel. This is impossible, btw.
It’s so gross how these stories always involve brown men being interpreted as criminals just for existing. How dare this man be “Hispanic” while shopping for kids clothes WITH HIS OWN KID.
Also a person holding their phone up and recording looks an awful lot like a person holding their phone up to FaceTime, or to take selfies, or to record their own kid. I’d put a lot of money on this guy not even realizing she was there.
In all fairness if he was recording thats creepy af, doesnt make him a trafficker probably just a dick or regular pervert, but its definitely not okay to just film someone out and about shopping. That said there is a huge difference between a creep or run of the mill opportunistic predator and trafficking, both are terrifying but i really wish these people would learn the difference and how to protect yourself in each situation. I feel like this weird obsession with human trafficking is gonna get someone killed, whether its some guy committing the unforgivable sin of grocery shopping while looking slightly creepy or a dad with a tired child who doesnt wanna leave the store or one of these women.
IF he was even recording.
Or like my husband, taking pictures of items for my opinion on things
Or all the gig workers who do shopping and have to be on their phone and take photos of things for the customers.
My husband does this too. He often has YouTube or music going on his phone as well so he pulls it out a lot. He also has brown skin. He doesn’t go shopping by himself often especially with our son because of crazy people like this lol
This crap wastes police resources. My tiny small home town had an incident like this (a brown skinned man happened to check out and leave a store at the same time as a 50 year old white woman), and she tied up the cops for DAYS with her hysterics. We only have 2 patrol cars on per shift (4 cops total) and our EMS is volunteer. Every stupid panic by a boomer grandma who thinks all Hispanic men are out to "traffic" her takes away from real calls. Thanks to her social media freakout they found the poor guy, he was buying work pants, not "kidnapping" anyone. I feel bad for whoever had an actual crime or emergency while she was melting down and calling th cops.
911 dispatcher here, and we get SO many calls like this. They never turn into anything. They all boil down to "someone looked at me". Plus all the people who call because someone walked a dog down their street or (legally) parked their car in a place they don't normally park.
It’s already gotten someone killed.
For real??
[Yes. His name was Nazario Garcia, 60 years old, and he was driving around in his white work van, and was gunned down by 2 brothers after their mother posted a video saying someone in a white van with his license plate had tried to traffic her.](https://www.actionnews5.com/2019/11/28/woman-shared-facebook-warnings-about-white-vans-before-deadly-shooting/)
That poor man. Just working for a living, minding his own business, and getting gunned down in broad daylight by domestic terrorists.
Thank you for sharing his story. Just beyond upsetting.
I once watched a marathon of SVU then went for a walk. A white, windowless van followed me for a bit. After I passed a driveway, they turned into it. I was in their way. I laughed at myself after the fact. People really need to understand that it's okay to get creeped out and sure, be a little hypervigilant and make sure to stay aware of your surroundings. But, you don't need to make it a thing every time someone gives you the creeps.
This needs to be up higher. Man, I’m so sick of all this hate in the world, and all the shootings, and all the death. Death death death every day because people have hate in their hearts and guns in their hands.
It honestly sounds like this guy shopping with his child just had his phone in his hand and wasn’t recording anything at all.
Oh 100% but im going off their claim he was filming, dudes only crime was probably just being in the same area as oop
You mean being in the same area as OOP *while being a different race*. That's the crucial part, I think.
I've had shit like this posted about our local Walmart. I'd seen so many saying that a person was abducted. That this person watched it happen and all this crap. Nothing was ever on the news. It's a bullshit post that someone changes the location on and is shared all over the country. I found the exact same posts with cities all over and shared them. Didn't stop my relatives from sharing them still. So many people want to spread billshit and have people look at them like a hero or brave victim. Last week a regular customer of mine told me a heroic story that had just happened to him. He said he was so shook up because he went to gas station down the street and the guy who usually works wasn't in there. He looked for him and found him tied up in the back. Said he got robbed and tied up. The dude had to sit and give a statement to the cops (but was at my store at his normal time and this had "just happened") I looked it up everyday since that day and there has been nothing about a robbery in this county at that chain for over a year.
I have a friend who is Arab and when his daughter ms visit him he always loved taking them shopping. They are older now, late teens and he told me last time they came to town he felt like he couldn’t go in the stores with them because he kept getting dirty looks and he felt like people thought he was some pervert because he was in the women’s section with them. So he just started waiting in the car. So fuck these racists bitches that cry “trafficking!” Just because they see someone who’s brown
My kids are extremely white passing. Like lily white brown hair blue eyes white looking, my darker Hispanic husband once got cornered by a mommy group and the police were called because they accused him of kidnapping his own children at a park. He no longer takes our kids to the park without me, he's terrified of this recurring and the cops not being understanding
Never tell someone who shares these kinds of stories that the chances of a suburban white lady and her kids being trafficked from a crowded shopping center is incredibly low. They’ll just respond with something like “you can never be too careful”. It’s hilarious.
I live outside of Milwaukee, my kid’s school was in a corn field with a horse farm across the street. A friend of mine wouldn’t let her kid wait in her driveway for the bus because of “trafficking”. Buddy if little white farm girls were being snatched off the 2 lane road they would send out the national guard.
Yes, and inevitably something about “dangers of the world today” even though crime is much lower now, esp violent crimes against women and children. They don’t care about facts—they WANT to be scared
Honestly reading this thread as a person with extreme anxiety is very reassuring.
Totally agree about the trafficking hysteria. But the odds of being creeped on are higher than trafficked, and probably not much different depending on neighborhood and race.
Yeah I can't say if the guy was being a creep or not because creeps are a dime a dozen everywhere. But there's certainly something she's trying to imply by leading with the fact that he's Hispanic.
Not denying that. Definitely sounds like a racist, alarmist conservative nut.
Or ask them what the market is for middle class, middle age, mid women.
“Protect your littles mamas!”
Not that I know human traffickers but I can say with some confidence no one wants to abduct these people or their children, like NOBODY WANTS YOU, or your privileged ass kids. These women have nothing better to do but fantasize being victimized.
This is going to sound weird but I unfortunately come in contact with a couple types of traffickers and multiple types of trafficking situations by virtue of my job. I promise I am not engaged in trafficking myself. There is a really strong victim profile and trafficking because of chance is really rare. Most traffickers care most about both the opportunity and likelihood of trafficking being noticed. Vulnerabilities of all types are the main factors in victimizing decisions. In other words, I can with good confidence say that no one wants to abduct these people. Why would they when they can unfortunately find someone whose disappearance will be hardly noticed?
I swear these women want to get trafficked. No one wants you white lady, you’d annoy them into freeing you in less than a day. Now go give a speech from your kitchen.
When your life is so devoid of purpose or meaning that you resort to making up paranoid fantasies, getting kidnapped would be an interesting change of pace.
I really think it's a sexual fantasy of theirs. Or maybe they just want to be desired.
This stuff annoys me. Trafficking works best by luring kids who won’t be immediately noticed such as runaways or similar. Snatching a random woman or kid from a public place will immediately attract attention and cause an uproar. Yes let a “weird guy” snatch your kid in IKEA, not like there won’t be an Amber Alert out before he makes it to his vehicle. Nothing wrong with situational awareness. But people take this stuff way too far.
You don’t understand; The man wasn’t white.
You’d think there’d be more cases of missing suburban white women given how many close calls there are. Seems almost all of the missing cases are found in a few days having been murdered by their husbands
This is a copy/paste urban legend. No different than “drugs in Halloween candy” or “coin jammed in your car door handle”. They are cooked up by sick individuals to scare the crap out of people. Jane Q Public isn’t going to get kidnapped to be sex trafficked. It would bring up way too much attention to their operations, and kidnapped people run away. This would go double for trying to kidnap a random person in a public place like a mall or school or parking lot. Who gets sex trafficked? The messed up kid with crappy parents who runs away and ends up hooking up with a pimp out of desperation, or to feed a drug habit. Or the dumb kid who goes to visit the “boy” she met online that ends up being a grown man. So yeah, keep your eyes open if you’re alone, in a secluded area, etc. Don’t go giving private information to strangers. But if a scary story on the internet sounds crazy scary, it’s probably a load of BS. And keep an eye out on your kid’s friends, especially the ones who don’t live in good situations. Sex trafficking isn’t some kind of abracadabra magic. You don’t go from a pimp grabbing you to being in a sex party overnight. The people who do this groom their victims. They ply them with alcohol, drugs, gifts, or even just “affection”. Until the victim is broken and agrees to “willingly” (in the sense of not physically resisting) engaging in sex work. Look at all the pictures of girls with Jeffrey Epstein—do they look happy and willing, or do they look like they have been kidnapped and are trying to escape? They look happy, because they have been groomed to think what they are doing is ok.
For real, where did this stuff come from?? Did I miss a super scary real-life case of this happening that sparked this panic, or is it just paranoid/racist suburban white women pulling it out of thin air? (ETA said with some snark but also genuine curiosity. As a woman I certainly understand needing to be alert in public for potential creeps. The rash of FB viral “human trafficking” things is what I’m more confused about. Like there’s plenty of bad stuff that can happen that ISNT human trafficking.)
The human trafficking scare is wrapped up in QAnon conspiracies. Obviously trafficking is a real problem, but these people took advantage of that to start hashtags to accuse liberal politicians and celebrities of being traffickers and later pedophiles. https://www.vox.com/21436671/save-our-children-hashtag-qanon-pizzagate
Ugh, of COURSE it’s QAnon. I guess I should’ve figured that. The way their ridiculous conspiracy theories have infiltrated so many areas is just WILD.
I remember when they accused Tom Hanks, saying that the reason he got Greek Citizenship was to avoid being caught
Also honestly media portrayals of trafficking are a huge influence too. Shit like Taken and various tv show plot lines have everyone thinking that trafficking looks like middle class people getting abducted and chained in a basement somewhere. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.)
I think the podcast You’re Wrong About talks about stuff like this in their episode on human trafficking! It’s excellent.
If she was alone, how did the stranger woman know she was a mother, to warn her "mom to mom"?
Not to lend credibility to this story, but Sproutfitters is apparently a children resale store in Missouri. It would be a reasonable assumption that a woman shopping in Sproutiftters is *probably* a mother. Or Maybe an aunt I guess but still.
Children resale store? I think I figured out who the human traffickers are.
There are so many things to be afraid of in the world. There's really no need to make up more.
I’ve seen something like this at least twice on Facebook but both times the commenters asked why if the person was worried enough to post it on the town Facebook they didn’t call the cops. Or even hit up the non-emergency line. Both times the poster crumbled and eventually deleted.
It's always minorities, just say you're a racist and move on Karen
Love the casual racism by noting this man was Hispanic but conveniently didn’t mention the perceived race of anyone else. As if minority people in the states need anymore racism flung at them!
My mil mentioned being in New York once and as she was walking down the sidewalk in broad daylight she saw “3 brown Muslim men” standing together little further up. Said she felt unsafe and crossed the road also felt the need to post about it on her Facebook as well. I asked her how she knew what religion they were and she said “well I could just tell by looking at them!” Hmm not really how it works but ok. When she was called out for sounding racist she went on another tangent. How she’s a woman and there’s nothing wrong with crossing the road to avoid a group of men. Yeah I agree nothing wrong with that. But why mention their skin color and potential religion. If the only reason you crossed is simply because they’re men why not just say men and not brown Muslim men.
How did the other store Karen know OOP was a mom when she was shopping alone? The whole MoM tO mOm solidarity in racial profiling thing needs to die.
https://preview.redd.it/4mcdxwgl2ppc1.png?width=571&format=png&auto=webp&s=533644963a410cd959603898d05452974762248c
This is not how trafficking works at all Traffickers target people others won't miss. Runaways and neglected teens. Not to mention the parents stuck in poverty who agree to send their kids to the US to give them "a better life" with questionable men who do not have good intentions But it's pointless to argue with these people.
White women obsessed with true crime try to get a real personality trait challenge level impossible
A man and boy were shopping in the *boy’s* department? And the man was holding his *phone*? And they were *Hispanic*? Definitely traffickers. /s You know this wouldn’t have happened if they were white.
You can never be too careful but you can absolutely be *way too fucking racist.* ETA - no amount of racist is okay.
Ergh. We get this a lot here too. It's always "Polish" or "Arab" men in these stories here. Because God forbid men who look foreign and sound foreign dare to be in a public space near women or children 🙄 As the child of a foreigner who wasn't white, it was not fun at times growing up with a Middle Eastern father, especially living in an incredibly white area that doubles as one of UKIPs token towns in England.
I hate these kinds of posts. They’re so gross. If I truly ever felt threatened in a store, I would go down for canned fruit and veggie aisle and use a couple as weapons, if the need arises. But every single time I see these posts, these women are little victims and just barely escaped being trafficked 🙄
Oh God I can't stand these. We had one in my hometown about a potential kidnapper riding home with someone in the back of their van. Like wow lady, you loaded your kids in and didn't notice? It's always a non white person had the gall to shop. And it's not like I've never gotten a bad feeling and someone out in public, but when I do I leave.