Imagine moving your entire family to a new home 1,500 miles away, and having one of your teenaged kids pull a Bartleby, the Scrivener: “I would prefer not to.” Then imagine your offspring, with all the impertinence and haughtiness that teenagers are wont to employ, registering her dissatisfaction with the move by running away. Finally, picture the scene when you and your family track her down in a Target parking lot, surround her and drag into your minivan to complete the journey, setting off a nationwide Amber Alert and resulting in having to explain yourself to a Jacksonville Police squad. Unfortunately for one family, this was a nightmare come true.
Apparently the 17-year-old girl who was reportedly abducted outside a Target store in Stafford County on Saturday, May 29th didn’t want to move to Florida.
Police said the teenager appeared to have been abducted outside the store off U.S. 17 about 11:30 a.m. Saturday by a male and two females, who pushed her into a dark green Dodge minivan.
The three turned out to be her family members, and the girl was found about 12:20 a.m. Sunday traveling with them in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., said Stafford sheriff’s spokesman Bill Kennedy…
“Information obtained by the Jacksonville Police Department indicated that the family had stopped in Stafford County on the way to a move to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Apparently the teen did not want to move to Florida and the actions witnessed in Stafford were the efforts of family members to get the teen back into the van and continue the trip to Florida,” said Kennedy.
The embarrassment of having their family’s dirty laundry turned into a police chase is bad enough (though, it should be said that those who called 911 and issued the Amber Alert did the right thing), but it now appears that the family may be facing criminal proceedings:
While no one has been charged in the case, the sheriff’s office and Stafford’s common-wealth’s attorney will discuss possible charges against the family members, said Kennedy.
Exactly what the family would be charged with has not yet been revealed, but it raises a serious question: what were the parents supposed to do? If they had left the teenager where she was, they would have justifiably been charged with abandonment and child-endangerment. So they clearly had to continue their trip with the kid. I suppose they could have called the police for help, but would that have been a proper use of public resources? And what sort of message does it send when a family calls the cops in order to handle a disciplinary issue? I, for one, do not want parents dialing into 911 every time a recalcitrant minor has a temper tantrum.
To be sure, snatching the girl in the middle of a public parking lot was probably not the wisest choice, and it predictably led to the police in several states getting involved. It’s not as if anyone who witnessed the event would have known what was going on, or that would have necessarily believed the family if they had explained themselves to the onlookers. Perhaps the family could have taken the initiative and phoned the police themselves after the ordeal was reported, which may have served to allay fears that some innocent girl was abducted for nefarious purposes. The fact that they did not do so, however, should not subject the family to potential criminal charges. Such an outcome would serve no purpose, public or private.
When all is said and done, I hope that the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office exercises wisdom and restraint in this case. The family was already in a hard place when their troublesome daughter decided to go AWOL. Charging them with a crime would merely be supplying the rock that makes any parental decision of this type next to impossible to handle. Mistakes were made, but everyone is now safe, and everyone should just let this family be.
