Abusing Amber

The other day... an Amber Alert came in over the weather radio... 4-year old girl abducted... vehicle description... suspect under investigation for 4 counts of child molestation...

My blood boiled.

I kept thinking... if I saw that car... why not just shoot the bastard and consider it a public service?

But there was something else to it... something wasn't quite right. So I listened to the alert again... It was her dad... her "non-custodial" father. Well damn... that doesn't make much sense does it?

Suddenly every conclusion I had jumped to appeared completely wrong.

What about those charges? Well... far be it from a pissed off woman to make up charges about child molestation or rape during a custody fight... I mean.... who ever heard of such a thing? That never happens.

And a pederast is gonna give up a life time of chasing kids for just the one?

Nah... that doesn't make much sense either.

Ya know what does make sense? A desperate father doing something desperate to keep his bitch ex-wife from stealing his kid from him.

Does that mean that's what happened? No. But it does show one thing... it demonstrates what a powerful emotional tool the Amber Alert System is. When its used... everyone assumes someone needs killing.

Here's something for ya...

According to a Scripts Howard study of 233 Amber Alerts... 117 of them were false alarms resulting from custody desputes. The Amber Alert system was designed for kids that were in immediate danger. In fact... on the US Justice Department's recommendations... that's number 2. The kid should be in immediate danger of severe injury or death. Daddy is an hour late to drop of the kids is not a justifiable reason for an Amber Alert... and yet... half of the time... its crap like that.

We've lived in a society where Assault doesn't mean Assault for some time... apparently we now also live in a society where abduction doesn't mean abduction either.