Can you imagine a more terrifying turn of events than a masked stranger trying to snatch your toddler out of your own back yard? Maybe there’s one, but it doesn’t immediately come to mind. Nevertheless, that’s what a White Center, Washington mom had to deal with Sunday. The report from komonews.com relates that Melissa “Hines felt someone brush by her and she saw a man run around the back of her house with her child under his arm . . .
“The guy had him in his hands, and he brushed up kind of behind me, and I saw that he had my son in his arms,” she remembers.
She gave chase and the kidnapper tripped and fell, dropping the child. A fight ensued between the mom and the attacker and the mom said she eventually laid on the ground on top of her son to protect him from the man.
After kicking her almost to unconsciousness, the black-clad kidnapper took off without the child.
“We’re always telling the kids got to make sure the gates are latched, are closed, and need to stay in the yard, stay in the yard,” Hines said. “And this guy was inside our yard, which makes it really scary.”
Just a guess, but based on her description of the dood, it doesn’t sound like a latched gate would have been much of a deterrent. On the other hand, a Mosberg 500 . . . .
She should have called 911 and waited for help to arrive. We don’t want anybody playing hero do we?
She should have run inside, grabbed her double-barrel biden, and fired two shots through a window! That would have saved the kid.
Nah, she should have pissed on and thrown up on her son to make him a less desirable target. Hey, it’s supposed to work for rape. What self-respecting kidnapper was to get piss on puke on his favorite kidnapping outfit?
Should have had her LAH-poo-ah.
This situation is horrifying, and I’m glad it didn’t end in tragedy. Good for the mom for putting up a fight. +1 for home carry.
Reminds me of an article I read on crime in Central America,Land of the Express Kidnapping.Put simply bad guys make off with a person,and demand that the victim or their relatives go to an ATM and give up the goods right then and there.
As our nation declines into something resembling a central American society,its a threat we need to consider.
I’ve lived in the Seattle area for about 30 years.
Nobody worth kidnapping for ransom lives in White Center.
I actually laughed out loud, because this is so true.
It’s pretty much a given this guy is some sort of deviant.
I live in SeaTac, Wa. and you’re right, there is no one worth kidnapping in White Center. I’ve lived here all my life and I remember when it was called ” Rat City ” for good reason.
The global political-pedophile network doesn’t care about intelligence or economic status. It’s a child to be USED UP SEXUALLY, then killed and discarded. I’m assuming this was a white, blonde kid? They’re in high demand.
You can actually research this stuff; one of the biggest companies involved in this is DYNCORP, the the vote-theft company.
Do a search of THE FRANKLIN COVER-UP.
Thats one situation where a leg shot could have been applicable
This story is deeply weird.
Yeah, White Center (known locally as ‘Rat City’) is a bit dodgy, but the story does not sound plausible.
What’s kind of strange is that a man tried to abduct small children in two separate incidents near the Seattle Center (I think during a “Race For The Cure” event) this past weekend. That particular man was picked up by police after two male relatives followed him to an intersection a few blocks away.
I wonder what the timeline is as it relates to this, but I’m too lazy to look it up.
I like the people in the comments section of that story who are claiming the mom made it all up.
Cui bono?
It’s easy to be cynical Matt. How many of these Total Random Stranger With No Witnesses stories have we heard where it turns out there was no stranger, it was just a lame story to try and cover the crime. The kid in Northern California who’s little sister got stabbed to death by the Total Stranger who then left the only witness to his brutal crimew alive and uninjured. The kid winds up to be the perp.
The woman who claimed the Total Black Stranger carjacked her car with her kids still in it and the car is later pulled from a lake with the kids bodies it it.
I’m always leery of these Total Stranger stories. Especially an incident like this. Broad daylight, in a residential neighberhood. How far was this masked Total Stranger going to run with a struggling kid tucked under his arm and not draw attention?
If the story’s true,
Look at the baby’s father.
Custody battle.
My first thought as well.
This shows the importance of layered defenses. A gun is not the end-all-be-all of home defense. A couple of large well-trained dogs would have been very helpful here. Two German Shepherds playing in the yard would have probably deterred this kind of snatch and run attack. Given the effect of stress on the body, I wouldn’t want to have to take a shot some guy holding my kid. I’d be fine, however, with Fido tearing his throat open.
Oh yeah, because a latched gate is the ULTIMATE deterent to would-be attackers. Much like a door and a phone call to the police are a deterent to home invaders.
The ultimate deterent to most crime is the threat of bodily harm or death to the criminal/attacker.
Pool carry question doesn’t seem so ridiculous now does it?
Ouch.
I was just thinking the same thing Pulatso, but you said it much better than I would have.
Pool carry isn’t hard. One of those teeny little NAA’s tucked under the sac in a hook-side-out velcro holster to grab the jungle and keep it in place.
A quick draw is going to leave a mark.
I think I read it here on TTAG. In Modesto, a neighber stopped just this sort of thing when he interceded on the victims behalf with a Mossberg 500 shotgun.
Slightly off topic, but it just occured to me that Mossberg really should sponsor a 500 mile NASCAR race.
Why, 75% of the people at a given Nascar event already own a Mossberg. And the other 25% can’t legally qualify to own a gun.
Good point.
You say that like one is enough. Or more specifically, that two is too many. 🙂
And the Mossberg 500 would be a great name for a race. I mean, if they ran it at Daytona and tried to do a Lapua 338, that’d be 135.2 laps. That’s just weird.
Great point jwm….
And the Remington 870 would take way too long.
How about the Baja Remington 1100?
“Here we are race fans, in day three of the Colt 1911.”
“This may be the only year for the ill fated Colt 2000.”
““Here we are race fans, in day three of the Colt 1911.”
Actually, it wouldn’t be quite that long. The 24 hours of Le Mans takes place on the Circuit de la Sarthe. 8.469 miles long at an average speed of 145 mph. Works out to almost 3500 miles in 24 hours.
So, you’re saying she should have shot at a man fleeing from her while he’s holding her child? Are you insane?
It seems her response was appropriate, she had to get into physical contact with him, and then once within arm’s reach, a knife or firearm would have been a danger to her. It’s better to hope that the guy wasn’t armed, I think.
But this doesn’t really pass the smell test. I don’t believe this happened. Her boyfriend beat her up and she didn’t want the cops involved.
After the attacker dropped the kid, he began to fight with her to try to get the child again. She was eventually reduced to lying on top of her child to absorb blows and prevent the attacker from grabbing the kid.
That later part of the confrontation, where she begins to actively fight off the attacker, is where some sort of armed defense would’ve no doubt been useful.
Once a smaller, weaker person is within arm’s reach of a larger, more powerful person, it can be very, very dangerous to have a weapon if the attacker is not already armed.
Yes, they can kill you without a weapon, but that takes a lot of work in most cases. If you pull out a weapon up close to him, then you’re much more likely to die from your own weapon, I would think.
There is no good solution to this one, and it seems, if this unlikely story is true, that she did about as well as one could hope.
Finally a rational comment. And people are saying she should have had a shotgun! Real story or not, you’re really going to fire at a moving target with your child under his arm? Give me a break.
If you can tackle someone and fight him empty hand, you can also tackle them and plant the muzzle between their ribs. Empty a cylinder or mag into a bad guy and you might make the wrestling match easier.
Think Zimmerman. Right or wrong, it can work.
I was wondering what people thought of maybe loading your shotty progressively… first shell is rock salt, bird shot next, then two buck, two slugs, and fill the rest with buck.
Or maybe, if you have a ksg, you can do something weirder.
Problem I see is that things could get real confusing real quick in a stressful situation.
Something smells wrong here.
I’m not just being cynical, I’m basing this off of being in law enforcement and seeing how real crimes are committed. This sounds like a story someone would make up.
A three year old is not a big target for molesters. A child can be a target for ransom, but it’s extremely rare. Much, MUCH more likely is that something happened, and the mother didn’t want to talk about how she really got hurt, or who hurt her… so she thought up the worst thing she could imagine.
And people will say it’s terrible to think that way, but people make crazy stuff up ALL THE TIME. Most of the time it doesn’t make the news.
Three years old is also old enough to spill the beans if mommy is making it up completely. Stay tuned!
Maybe Mommy is not making it up, but it would not surprise me if there was a nasty custody battle going on.
This is the type of story i like to use to rebut someone when they say you should give the attacker what they want.
P.S. mossburg 500? A little indiscriminate – might hit the kid, no? How about a nice .338 LAH-poo-ah to the head. From the Trackingpoint – and then post it on your Facebook page!
DGU? Yea right. You shoot that guy and you’d pay 100,000$ in legal bills. Our justice system sucks. DA would push for the highest penalty (who cares about reason or right) just to get the highest number of high profile convictions and mom would have to find a way to flip the bill (after they stitched her head back together).
i would go to jail and risk bankruptcy to protect my family.
Or, you let the guy go and later he brutally molests and kills the child. But hey, you saved $100 grand. Could be thought that I’m the twisted one for risking jail and bankruptcy in an effort to save a loved one.
I agree with you guys. I would protect my family also – but i’m also making a point here – we are harshly penalized for protecting our own and it sucks. The point is… when is a DGU valid? Never in the eyes of the DA. And while you are sitting in prison with a roomie named “soapdropper”… who is protecting your kids then?
Honestly, depends on the state. Some states have very strong laws protecting those that use a gun defensively from criminal and civil charges. Others suck.
even in deep blue maryland i have seen lots of people go free for valid DGU, or DKU. My personal all-time favorite is a Hopkins student who killed an intruder with a samurai sword in their garage, the intruder was unarmed but lunged at the student. DA did not press charges. As a rule I think DA’s are a lot less hostile than you think, which is admittedly based on anecdotal evidence.
If I chased down someone kidnapping my child in broad daylight, even in this state, i would not expect charges. Even if I was carrying a firearm. These are exactly the cases they do not like to prosecute because they make nice clean test cases for the laws in question. They might trump up some misdemeanor or something. In DC the guy who shot that dog attacking the boy was charged with a misdemeanor for unlicensed firearms and sent on his way.
Now, if the perp was unmasked as my estranged wife (or in this case, husband) from a bitter custody battle, that could all change. There would be some ‘splainin to do. to a jury. Sometimes you read about an “injustice” and then find out there are a lot of facts left out of the news story.
Maybe the kid said “gun” in nursery school and the principal was teaching him a lesson.
Oh, I can’t stop laughing at that one!
Heres a good DGU
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/04/us/new-york-robbery-thwarted/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1
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