Man sees two year old alone; drives by. Did pedophile hysteria cause a child's death?

This happened to me several days ago. While driving in a semi-industrial zone in San Diego, I saw two very young children, probably no more than 3 and 4, attempting to cross a busy street. My first instinct was to stop and either help them, or give them a ride to wherever it was that they were going. However, as a 30+ year old white male who drives a beat up vehicle, it took only a fraction of a second to realize that I might be taken for a creep, so I kept driving - much to my shame. I am a bit of a sucker for helping people, and usually do not worry about what will be thought of me, but the simple fact is that falling under the accusation of being a kidnapper or a pedophile is a potent deterrent.

Many years ago I was driving by on a city street and noticed a toddler wander out a store door and into the street. I stopped and took the child back in the store and found it's mother at a counter. Later I realized that could have very easily been misunderstood. Having read this article though, what else can you do and live with yourself? It's a hell of a choice to make. People are suspicious and they should be in this day and age but jumping to conclusions has terrible consequences too. That accusation even if it is disproved or rather not proved is enough to ruin your life forever.

The only conclusion I can come to is this:
1) As a white male in my mid-20's I will not be doing anything that could be viewed as even vaguely suspicious.
2) The price that parents will have to pay for more safety for their kids is making certain that they or a trusted family member is watching them 24/7 until they are old enough to take care of themselves.

I have found in our society, just in the time I have grown up, that when I go out of my way to help people 75% appreciate it and 25% are not pleased that I interfered with their personal property line turning their lights off to prevent their battery from going dead. The 25% is growing. Does anyone else feel that society itself has turned suspicious of one another as a whole?

Does Fitzroy Barnaby have any more legal options?

Too much is missing from this story.

Did his truck have a radio?
Did he have a cell phone?
He could have stopped traffic with his truck and gotten other people involved.

By brother had a similar situation; a lost child and he felt funny about helping. If you think a white male has a problem with accusation, think of a brown skin Middle eastern looking man (even though we are Indian) with a small white girl.
What he did was stop the child, got on his cellphone called 911 immediately, and stopped people passing by to get help for her.
He got help right away from a woman passing by and they waited together while the police came.
I am not saying the truck driver had all these options, but I am sure he had some options.

He shouldn't have grabbed her. Period.

Whatever about the rest of it and the pretty dumb law in that particular state.

This situation is sad, and unfortunately far too typical in America today.

Down here in Austin, TX we've got a lot of immigrants who seem to not supervise their children whatsoever. If you enter a grocery store it's like a jungle with kids running everywhere with parents often nowhere in sight. I almost hit a little girl who ran from behind a corner at full speed just the other day in the parking lot. It's troubling bc you know tragedy is just around the corner. You feel obligated but it's just not worth the risk.

I hate to generalize but it seems this permissive parenting style is predominant among Mexican immigrants.

I don't think I would just drive away if I saw a child alone but I would be concerned about being labeled a pervert. i think I would call the police and watch the kid from a distance. Sometimes even good ideas are carried too far.

Personally, while I sympathize with the truck driver's dilemma, I think he (obviously) made the wrong decision. Even if the little girl had found her way back to the daycare, it would not have excused not stopping. The problem is greater than simple mistrust. People just don't care to do the "right thing" any more. Maybe we have become so accustomed to pushing that responsibility off on others, like the government, charities, politically ideological interest groups et. al. that most feel responsible only for their own hide, while conveniently demanding that someone else take action,and thus derive a moral justification for their apathy.

We're just a selfish, self-loving society, plain and simple.

I read a story some years back about a woman who had run a day-care center until she was falsely accused of child molestation during the hysteria that ensued after the McMartin case (remember those dark days?) She was one of the "lucky" ones who was acquitted on the ludicrous charges after having been financially ruined and of course lost her career, but later when she saw a child fall and hurt herself in a public mall, she walked past rather than attempt to help the child for fear of another accusation.

I honestly just call 911 when I see something going on that looks troublesome unless I know the child and their family. I conclude that since it is a police officer's job to deal with problems like those, he won't have any trouble taking custody of them and taking them back to whomever is responsible for them. As people have said above, strangers are so mistrustful I don't need the suspicion or accusation. Like my mom told me, if someone accuses you of a crime it's on the front page and when you're acquitted it's on A10.

I think a great many of us have been confronted by this dilemma. I was seventeen back in 1979 when a little girl came darting out in front of my Fiat from behind a tree. I swerved and hit the brakes, my front bumper stopping short of her little head at an inch or so. No parents in site, it was huge front yard. I was so freaked out about the incident, that I jumped out of my car and took the crying girl up to her house, knocked on the door (I knew where she lived, did not know her or her parents).

Nobody answered, but I could hear a TV blaring inside the house. I knocked loudly, entered the house to find a woman sitting with a beer and a bunch of hohos on the sofa watching a soap opera (mid-afternoon). I told the mother what had just happened, and she began to scold the hell out of this little girl (maybe almost two years old). I was enraged and told the lady that perhaps she should get off her fat ass and pay some attention to her children. Out-of-line, I know, but I just about killed her little girl.

I stormed out of the house yelling "you're welcome!" after getting an earful from the mother. Went home and told my mother what had just happened. It turned out that my mother's boss had just witnessed the entire affair, and my actions/reactions. To this day, nearly thirty years later it is still a source of pride for my mother but in today's climate, I'd be in jail.

It's easy for me to think I would have done something different when I read the story in front of my computer. But who really knows how they would act until the time comes? I think it says a lot that he even called when he heard the lost child message. Some people today would just keep on moving.

I think too many people are called to parent today but aren't allowed to. It seems that just yesterday Hillary Clinton was telling us how 'it takes a village' but if you do anything to another villager's child you had better have a lawyer on retainer.

Another 'Viner (ridgydidge) has just written a great little article about the broader effects of this stuff on society. It's a lovely read.

My story
http://estrinyefim.newsvine.com/_news/2007/06/23/798199-internet-porn-hysteria

I had a similar situation recently in the Orlando International Airport. I was in the ladies' room and a mom with an infant in a stroller and two toddlers come in. The toddlers were probably about 3 and 4, so clearly the woman had her hands full. She was in the middle of doing her own business and the baby was screaming when the two toddlers made a mad dash for the door.

I'm a mom of one (now 18) and former stepparent of six children. The whole situation scared the crap out of me. I went after the toddlers. I didn't touch or even try to talk to them. I merely kept an eye on them until mom came out of the restroom. Had something gone wrong (or even suspect), I'd have been yelling for security at the top of my lungs. Mom was relieved and thankful that someone actually cared about the safety of a stranger's children.

A village, indeed.

That is very sad. Couldn't the man in the story at least have called the police or something?