People can be so mean...........

[greensinestro]

A while back, my sister-in-law's friend was at a local Denny's with his daughter. He and the daughter decided to go out, just two of them for quality time together. While they were eating, he had an itch on his back and asked his daughter to scratch his back being he could not reach it himself, something that seemed totally harmless.

A short while later, two police officers entered the restaurant, and approached this man and his daughter. They asked him for ID, which he gave and wanted to know what this was about. "Well, sir, we received an anonymous phone call that a man and his daughter were engaging in inappropriate sexual acts at this very table." This guy then had to explain to the cops that all that happened was he asked his daughter to scratch an itch on his back, nothing else. He also had to get a couple of other patrons to back him up on this so he would not be hauled away and booked for sexual acts on a minor.

Meanwhile, whoever did this horrible thing will never be known, and now he has to be extremely careful about what he does in public with his daughter. It seems like now just holding hands with your kids (which my parents did to keep us from being separated) is a crime that anyone with a cell phone will report to the police. How far is this going to go?

[Cia]

I suggest the cops trace the anonymous call and charge the idiot with falsifying a police report.

[IT Grunt]

My faith in humanity just dropped a couple notches. It is because of incidents like this that parents are getting afraid to do /anything/ with their kids in public, because busy-bodies who don't know how to keep their noses out of everyone else's business cry child abuse at the drop of a hat. I would agree, there needs to be more accountability for false reports like this and people suffering consequences for it. Perhaps then people wouldn't be so quick to make snap judgements about what is and is not child abuse.

[greensinestro]

Well said, ITgrunt. Too many people are being labeled sexual offenders for the rest of their lives for incidents like this. You can't do anything with your own children, and sometimes it's a crime whenever an adult just says "hello" to another child that is not their own. Do these mean people think about the consequences of their actions before actually filing a report like this?

A friend of mine years ago dealt with something like this, and today he still worries about it happening again one day. He and his neighbor had gotten into a minor argument. The neighbor's child had been talking to my friend's child about sex, and we're talking things you don't discuss with other children. He had older siblings that had told him everything, so he was sharing it with the other kids. When my friend had confronted the neighbor, this neighbor shrugged it off, saying they go to church and there was no way his child would do something like that.

A few days later, the police came knocking on my friend's door, stating someone had filed a report about my friend sexually abusing his child. My friend knew right away who it was, and it was a very harrowing experience. He was cleared of it, but was still scarred and upset for a long time afterward. Thankfully, what this neighbor did came back to haunt him. It turned out later, the police had visited their child's school, and many of the kids there had told the police that this kid told these stories at school, and that he had admitted he learned all of this from his much older and married siblings. This neighbor had to pull his child out of school, and later on, they put their house up for sale and moved because they were unpopular with the neighbors and the school. In addition to that, they had to sell their business and move to another town because all of this followed them to the next house they bought, which was just a few miles away. Apparently what this kid did at his old school, the new school found out about it.

Sometimes there is justice for son of a bitch mean people like this, but not always. Most calls are anonymous, and the police will normally not release the identity of the caller, even if it affects some innocent person like the ones I've mentioned here.

[repsac]

one major problem is cellphones. They're darned hard to trace.

[myswtghst]

That's just.....wow. Really. What on Earth would make someone think that was a good idea? Besides, that I've seen people practically taking eachothers clothes off whilst making out in a booth at Denny's, and just turned the other way.

I just can't understand how anyone could, in good conscience, make an accusation like that about people they just saw out in public. I've dated older guys and I look quite young for my age (or so I've been told), and it would have been *mortifying* to have someone mistake one of them for my father and call the cops. I could never imagine going to the police with something like that unless I had actual proof of some sort, or knew the people involved, because a situation like that is so easy to misconstrue, and an accusation like that could so easily ruin someone's life.

[greensinestro]

Plenty of good replies to this thread. The two people I've mentioned took these experiences as wake up calls. First, the guy at Denny's now has to be alert and make sure that he and his daughter do nothing but stay separated because of some mean people out there who jump the gun and don't care what it does to that person for the rest of their lives.

Second, my friend's wake up call was the fact that nowadays, if you piss off the wrong person, that person will do what it takes to get revenge, even if it's made up. This friend could have had his marriage, career and the rest of his life destroyed because of this asshole neighbor of his deciding he didn't like someone saying his kid could be capable of bad things. He was so upset that he at first wanted to call the police and do the same to him, but I stopped him, telling him that they most likely have the identity of who called it in, and it would not look good if he did it back to him. In the end, that whole family moving out of Dodge was satisfying to him.

[ArenaBoy]

What the hell? I see people having sex in their cars at my lot constantly and it's never reported. What's wrong with scratching an itch on someone's back and how is it sexual anyway? That's one of the things that I actually hate about cell phones is that it's great in case of emergencies but in cases like the one mentioned they are a PITA. When more accountablility for these incidents take place hopefully the problem will not be as prevalent.

[Auto]

one major problem is cellphones. They're darned hard to trace.

only folks with hard-to-trace cellphones are organized crimes types.

busybodies reporting sex abuse allegation are unlikely to have untraceable cellphones.

my sense about such incidents is never never never admit to any bahaviors that could in any way be misconstrued. never explain anything. when cops ask questions, act mystified. and indignant. ask to know who made the allegation.

or course, this risks cops bringing in social workers to question the child.

but kiddie-diddlers are unlikely to do it in restaurants where everyone can see them. cops know that. so asking them if they're asking if you did something inappropriate with a child a public setting as a way to deny the allegation may be your best bet.

while I think real kiddie-diddlers deserve to be put awat for a long time, i also think society may have gone too far and that we're now investigating totally innocent people just because some busybody dropped a dime on them. There needs to be a way for people to get their reputations and good names back. lawsuits are usually the answer.

[protege]

but kiddie-diddlers are unlikely to do it in restaurants where everyone can see them. cops know that. so asking them if they're asking if you did something inappropriate with a child a public setting as a way to deny the allegation may be your best bet.

You'd be surprised. There was a case locally, involving an adult molesting a little girl at the water park here. From what I read, it happened during the day at the wave pool area. Quite a few people were around (and saw it) but that didn't stop the guy from doing it. At least he got caught and is now in jail.

[Gawdzillers]

I'd like to see that one on COPS.

Officer: We got a report of someone engaging in sexual acts with their daughter.
Him: What? She was scratching an itch on my back!
Officer: Really? Well...huh...

[BunnyJas]

I work at a few of the elementary schools in my area. Earlier this week I came to one of my schools and there were police cars all around the front of the school and when I came in, the office had three officers in there talking to the administrators. I found out later that some parent had accused a male teacher's aide of touching her son inappropriately. That morning instead of calling the school first, she had called the local news station and the cops. The school was basically ambushed and didn't know what was going on until they were questioned by the news media and the officers! I don't know what really happened, but I would think that any sane person who actually feared that her son was being abused would call the school first to report the teacher. The school would then launch their own investigation and the aide would be suspended during this time. What's worse is if this aide is innocent, then this will be on his record and jepordize any future employment. All because someone wanted be a drama queen. This incident has increased my fear of working with children, knowing that there are nuts out there who will literally believe everything precious says without question and have teachers arrested.

[Arachne]

The 'guilty until proven innocent' attitude we have the moment that children are involved in our society is really disturbing. I know several people who've had extensive dealings with CPS, and every single one of them cannot speak of the subject without cursing up a storm.

I actually had a lady come into my store a couple of days ago. She used to be a judge, but stopped being a judge because she'd get all these cases where CPS was taking "bad parents" to trial, having already taken their kids and put them in foster homes, tearing their families and lives apart when there was NO REASON TO DO SO. Some of these cases were exactly what the OP described -- due to anonymous tips by people who didn't know jack of the situation, or due to neighbors with grudges making up blatant lies. She got sick of seeing it over and over and stepped off the bench to be an attorney representing families who get persecuted in this manner.

She was telling me about a girl who got pregnant -- she was way underage, but decided to keep the baby. Her boyfriend was charged with statiatory (sp?) rape, and to "keep her away from him", she was relocated to another state, far away from her friends, family, and support network. And then they expected her to basically fend for herself. If she didn't obey, they took the baby away from her.

Anyway, listening to the outrage in this (very reasonable, educated) woman's voice really got me outraged all over again. Every time I read stories like the OP, or greeninestro's friend, I just want to go find whoever is responsible and smack them.

[zzapp the witch]

My mom got reported to CPS because my little sister was crying at school. (My sis....well, girly girl drama is the nicest way to describe this). Teacher asked her why she was crying. Because mom made her take makeup off before she came to school. Family rule was no makeup til 14 (reasonable, I still believe) and no way you're getting out of the house looking like Mimi Bobeck. Sis was 12 AND looked WORSE than Mimi.

My mom was not only enforcing reasonable family rules and teaching her not to leave the house looking like a streetwalker, but probably saved her from a bunch of ridicule from her classmates. And she got reported to CPS for it.

They made my parents' lives HELL! For no damn good reason either. When they found out the reason from my sister that she was crying, they went off on this tangent asking her about spanking and molestation! Then she was crying because they were trying to convince her that she had bad parents!

She later told us that they literally sat there and kept telling her over and over that her parents were bad and that she needed to tell them all the bad things that they were doing to her, and then started suggesting things! Even stupid crap like my mom going in the bathroom for something while my sister was in the shower....stupid crap that happens everyday in a house with 6 people and one bathroom.

I was married at the time, and my husband was a result of New York state foster care. Only in his case, the removal from his mother was the best thing in the world. She asked him for advice, he just looked at her and said, "Well, with the way you're feeding into this with the drama....have fun being molested and beaten in foster homes." She didn't believe him until he took off his shirt and started telling stories about where all of his scars came from.

In the end, I don't know what exactly she told those idiots, probably something my hubby scripted for her, but they dropped everything like a hot potato and left after incurring two weeks of constant hell upon my family. My mother's bald spot eventually filled back in.

[ForestDragon]

Stoopid question time - who's Mimi Bobeck?

As for the original situation in the OP - sounds like the nark was a frickin' idiot, not knowing the difference between primate-style grooming (snicker) and child molestation. And would whoever it was rather have seen Daddy scratching his back with a fork in public?