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Van sought in possible kidnapping; except there was no kidnapping
By adamg on Thu, 10/13/2022 - 2:31pm
Oops: BPD reports van, child and woman found and it was all a misunderstanding - no kidnapping.
BPD has put out an APB for this gray van with a white top in connection with a possible kidnapping at 700 Commonwealth Ave. - Boston University's Warren Towers. It's a Mercedes van with several stickers, one an oval, on the back, and possibly non-Massachusetts license plates.
Police say they're looking for an eight-year-old Asian boy - taken by a white woman.
Third Photo of Suspect Van pic.twitter.com/C6Z4RgDfe2
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) October 13, 2022
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Latest update
Victim is 8-year old Asian male.
Suspect is white female.
2 more pics
Mercedes Sprinter
2014-2017 Mercedes Sprinter. Custom roof vent.
Update from BPD
As suspected
This was kicking around some multiracial family communities today, and people suspected it was probably an adoptive parent or biracial child with their white parent (the reason being that multiracial families are common and stranger kidnappings are very uncommon).
There does need to be a balance between looking out for the welfare of adopted kids/kids in care and recognizing that different race alone isn't reason to suspect someone's child doesn't belong with them. Adopted and fostered kids are at quite high risk of mistreatment, with mainstream "treatments" frequently recommended that aren't trauma-informed and use punishment, withholding comfort, frequent use of crisis teams and hospitalization, and an overall characterization of the child as a problem rather than as someone displaying a normal reaction to losing their family.
That being said:
1) Reporting something as a kidnapping just because a child doesn't match and looks upset will not in any way result in a shift to more appropriate parenting/therapy tactics, because it's perfectly legal to force one's own upset child into a car, provided it's not done with violence or anything. In families who are receiving non-trauma-informed care, it's just going to be one more strike against the child that "the child's behavior" resulted in the police being called. If the child is in foster care with a perfectly appropriate foster parent or relative, such an incident will typically result in them being moved "just to be safe," resulting in yet another trauma/loss that the child thinks is their fault. Having worked in the child welfare system in various capacities for many years, I can tell you that having a stranger call the cops pretty much never results in any sort of Lifetime Movie discovery and rescue of a child who spends their days locked in a basement.
2) We certainly had plenty of people assume we were kidnapping our kids when they were young, in situations in which the person clearly did not read any of the cues whatsoever other than seeing people who don't match. One of my "favorites" was leaving BMC with an upset kid. We were getting a ride home in a car, and the person picking us up pulled up slowly, windows rolled down, music on, and just chilled as I leaned on the open car door and slowly and calmly coaxed kid to calm down, get in car, take off backpack, get buckled in. Someone who worked there called security for a suspected abduction. You know, because people who steal children do it right at the main entrance to BMC, take their sweetass time, make sure the child is buckled in properly, etc. Absolutely the only thing that remotely looked to anyone like I wasn't the kid's parent was race. Most multiracial families have such stories.
Nanny-Moms!
Especially if mom's Asian or Latina and dad's white when a baby or toddler leans more to the Caucasian side a lot of people assume mom's a nanny when she's out and about with them during business hours.
See, that's the "funny" thing
Yes, that exact dynamic is common. We discuss it in child welfare circles in terms of it being one of the many dripping-with-bias dynamics that come through. Often we see reports from medical centers etc. that are just bullshit reporting "concerns" that the parent is not adequately upset that the child is sick or whatever, and often the reporter has given the child's race as white. It tells me everything I need to know about how the reporter is viewing the situation.
However, the thinking-parent-is-babysitter thing happens in transracial foster/adoptive families, in which the most common constellation is white parents with children of color, as in my family. The funny thing about this whole nanny/babysitter thing is, um, what Black families have white sitters? Have you not noticed how extremely segregated this city is? And are you not familiar with the many very good reasons most Black families wouldn't hire most white sitters? And even if you aren't, when have you seen Black families with white sitters? The number of transracial adoptive parents and white parents of biracial kids is much much higher.
No good deed goes unpunished
My son was walking home from a friend's house when he was about 14 years old. It started to rain quite hard.
A long-time family friend, who happens to be a large black man, pulled up and offered him a ride, which he accepted.
Unbeknownst to the two of them, a woman from a far less diverse community witnessed the interaction. We will call her KfW (K from W-ton). She called the police and told them that she just saw a black man "lure" a white teenager into a pickup truck.
She proceeded to trail them for about a mile to our dead-end street. I was home (my son had not asked me for a ride and was at the stage of resenting any offers) and I popped out to thank LBM for looking after my son. (I honestly would have done the same for his kids - in fact, I had before). Then I notice the frantic KfW right behind, still yammering into her phone.
LBM can't leave because KfW is blocking the street. Cops immediately roll up.
I'm still outside and going WTAF? I stand there in the rain, LBM puts his hands on the steering wheel. I engage the police and explain the situation over the angsty noises of KfW.
The local cops know LBM since he is a municipal employee in a neighboring city and highly involved in our local community, so they come up to his window to say "hey- all good".
I walk up to KfW and she is now foaming at the mouth with excuses. I tell her that she needs to answer one question - not for me, just for herself: "Would you have done this if the driver were white?". I go inside, cops tell KfW to gtfo, and LBM heads home.
My son got a powerful lesson in implicit bias and empathy that day.
It's over, apparent misunderstanding
from the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/bostonpolice/status/1580661464339136512
Next time see something, say
Next time see something, say nothing to avoid ending up looking like a fool.
I hope the Karen who filed the BS report...
...got arrested and charged with wasting the BPD's time, and possible terrorism charges due to the panic caused by such declarations.
No chance
"Better safe than sorry" reporting is extremely protected, especially in this state (which has the highest rates per capita of child welfare reporting, investigations, and substantiated reports, while objectively substantiating things that most states would laugh at even being considered for reporting, and which MA DCF openly admits reflects "our Commonwealth proudly having an extremely low bar for such things.")
False/inappropriate reporting gets discussed frequently in court clinician circles. The state pretty much won't ever take action against false reporting unless it's an added charge in a string of targeted crimes in which someone made a report to divert or specifically to harass. This one wouldn't even be considered, because Massachusetts actively encourages people to call in reports early and often any time they have a "concern." I've heard of so many cases in which families' attorneys have attempted to take action for extremely inappropriate reporting, including cases in which records make it clear that the reporter knew the report couldn't actually be true, or left out context that would have led to it being screened out. They get nowhere though, because a report is considered "in good faith" if the reporter was concerned. "Feared for my life" vibes, anyone?
Also, the state won't admit that having police or DCF "check on someone and offer their helpful services" constitutes harm, so there aren't damages for a civil suit. One family for whom I expert witnessed on a companion matter had DCF and police repeatedly wake them up at night and stripsearch their child because of false reports from a "professional." Another had DCF show up at the emergency room, not allow the family to leave, and imply that the children were in DCF custody because of a false report that was quickly screened out once the family pointed out things to the DCF investigator that they would easily find in the ER's own records. The attorneys for these families said they would certainly lose in a civil suit and probably wouldn't even have standing, because these things aren't considered damages, so I'm fairly sure a cop car rolling up on someone and media reports they were wanted also wouldn't be. #ProtectAndServe