False Report of Attempted Kidnapping at Deerwood Academy

Oh wow!

Would you believe that?

Sure enough, the story about an eight-year-old girl’s attack and attempted kidnapping turned out to be false.  Untrue.  A complete lie.  Or as said by the Atlanta police department, “unfounded.”

APS Police: Allegations of playground abduction attempt 'unfounded'

It didn’t take long for the results of the investigation to emerge.  As anybody could have easily figured out, it turns out that the girl was lying for whatever reason about her alleged attack.  There was no attack.  There was no threat to the school that day.  Everything was fine.

It turned out that yes, the students *were* closely supervised while they were on the playground at recess.  It also turned out that no, the girl was certainly *not* attacked by a stranger at any point in time.  One of the school’s security cameras does monitor the playground, and all of that was easily verified.  I’m sure that’s why the school waited so long before they were forced to act on the girl’s ridiculous claims.  They knew that she was lying, but because of all of the rules and restrictions, they still had to ultimately act upon it.

Why did the girl’s mother believe the story despite the obvious plot holes?  I know that parents want to believe their children when bad things happen, but I’ve got news for you.  Are you ready?  Children lie.  This is actually somewhat frequent in today’s society.  Just ask any teacher and you’ll probably hear several examples of students lying and parents believing the lies.

Shame on the girl’s mother for believing such an obvious lie by her daughter.  Shame on her for allowing her and her daughter to be interviewed by the news media.

So how about the local news stations?  Why did all of those news stations cover the story when it was obvious that the kid was lying?  Didn’t any of the producers take a moment and use some common sense before approving the story before it was aired?

That’s what I want to know.

I hope the police and school system go after the daughter.  I don’t care that she’s only eight-years old.  She knew exactly what she was doing when she told her lie about being choked by a stranger, and having him put a gun in her face.  While kids do make mistakes (that’s part of being a kid), when you screw up on a level that high, the school and law enforcement need to step in and do something about it.  These false reports are getting ridiculous.