the time i helped stop an attempted kidnapping
weird post today: i want to share the story of the time my roommates and i stopped what seemed to be an attempted kidnapping. seriously!
also, i apologize to all my smallweb buds for being MIA for a long while
i've just been overwhelmed by Everything lately, between wedding planning and the state of the world, and haven't had any "being social online" energy. but i am fine!
now, onto this crazy-ass story.
it happened a few years ago, outside our old apartment. it was late, close to midnight, and we had a friend over to watch something-- i think it was Drag Race? and we were having a normal time, just sitting around the TV and chilling. i'll refer to this friend by his initial, G. the other people present were my partner and two other friends, who i'll call E and K.
G got up to use the microwave, which was next to the window. the windows in the frontroom faced the street, so if anything was going on outside you could hear it if you were standing there. if you were on the couch, you couldn't really hear outside noise, especially not over the TV. so, suddenly, while waiting for his food to heat up, G was like, "hey, mute the TV real quick, i think i hear a domestic violence incident happening outside?"
we did as he as asked and listened. he said he had heard at least one female and male voice screaming at each other, but by the time we all started listening, it had stopped. we peeked out the blinds (which looked funny, all of us huddled around the window like the seven dwarves lmao) and saw a girl sitting across the street, on the curb, with her back facing us, and she was alone and hysterically sobbing.
so, obviously this was fucking weird, because there was no reason for some random girl to be crying alone outside in the middle of the night. there were no apartments or houses on that side of the street, so we figured she probably hadn't come outside from her house just to cross the street and cry. whoever the male voice was that G heard had apparently gone away, because we watched her for a few minutes and she was definitely alone out there.
we all looked at each other, like, "uh. should we do something?" and agreed that we should check on her. the neighborhood we lived in at the time was pretty safe and quiet, but it was dark, the particular corner we lived on was a blind spot prone to car accidents, there were train tracks right next to the road, it was cold out, and she was in a "going out" outfit with no jacket.
myself, G, and K all agreed to go check on her while E and my partner stayed behind. we went in a group just in case this was something sketchy (we've all heard the horror stories of young girls being used as bait to abduct or rob people) because the three of us are all fruity transmasculine queers, so none of us are particularly threatening or capable of fending off an attack on our own. this turned out to be a really good call!!
going outside, we crossed the street and asked if she was okay. immediately we could tell she was drunk, but she seemed more than just drunk— she was almost incoherent, like she was on something else, and she could barely stand. she tried to get up from the curb to talk to us but we were like "it's okay, you can sit, do you need any water," etc. etc., and she explained the situation as coherently as she could: she had been in a car with "her friends", and they had kicked her out of the car for no reason and drove away, stranding her there. she didn't know what part of the city she was in or how to get home, and she'd been trying to call someone—i think it was her boyfriend, but she was having a hard time communicating clearly so i'm still not really sure—but they weren't able to help her for whatever reason, they were asleep or out of town or something like that. this person being unhelpful was just upsetting her more, so we got her to just hang up and we could try something else.
we were able to calm her down a bit and asked if she had anybody else she could call, and she wanted to try for her mom, so we told her to try that and we'd wait outside with her until we figured something out.
now, this is where the really weird shit happens. she called her mom, who thankfully answered the phone, and i remember one of us talking to mom as well just to clarify that her daughter was safe. mom said she'd come pick her up, but she lived a little far away so it would be about 20 minutes until she arrived. we assured her that this was totally fine, ended the call, that was that. made sure the girl didn't need food or water or a blanket, she said she was fine, kept thanking us for helping her.
so while we're waiting, some random white boy came walking down the sidewalk, quite literally out of the darkness because there weren't a lot of streetlights on this road. he was sorta young, maybe late 20s, looked clean-- hair was cut, beard was groomed, was dressed in a black t-shirt and sweatpants or something like that, but it was all black. definitely wasn't a homeless person; he looked like some regular college student. so he walked right up to us, with this weirdass smile on his face, and just said, "hey guys, what's going on?" as if he knew us. and we were just like "...we're just helping this girl out, do you know her or something?"
he was smiling through this whole interaction btw. like the entire time. none of us were smiling back so we were all thinking "the fuck is this dude so giddy about??" but it was such a faux friendliness, like...you know how you can just. sense when someone's vibes are off? the vibe was ROTTEN from this man. i've had plenty of interactions with creeps and weirdos before, but this is the only time i can say i have ever seen a genuine "creepy smile" from somebody.
anyway, he turned to the girl, who had gone back to sitting on the curb and kinda zoning out, and he started ASKING HER TO COME WITH HIM. he got all personable, like "haha hey yeah it's time to go, everyone's waiting!" and gesturing for her to get up and follow him. she was like ???? and looked like she was about to listen to him, but K had the foresight to say "hold on, do you know each other? do you know what her name is?"
whiteboy couldn't come up with her name but he kept pressing her to come with him, and then the girl said "you kind of look like i've seen you before but i don't know..." and K was like "okay, yeah, if you two don't know each other for sure you need to leave us alone now, we've got someone coming to pick her up already." the girl seemed to realize at that moment that she definitely didn't know this person, so she started telling him to fuck off, too.
so then, without saying another word, whiteboy turned to leave, started walking back down the sidewalk the same way he came, and then once he got to a distance where he must have assumed we weren't looking he started sprinting and disappeared into the night. just straight up booked it out of there, and it was too dark to see where he ran off to.
so obviously after that we were like what the fuuuuuck was that and decided to call police in case he came back or something. fuck cops but this was all extremely weird and we were suspecting that something very shady was going on. mom and the police showed up at about the same time; mom was a pleasant, suburban minivan type of lady.
first thing we did was ask mom if she or her daughter knew anyone matching the description of the guy, and we explained our bizarre interaction with him, and she barked out a very incredulous "WHAT THE FUCK? NO WE DON'T KNOW ANYONE LIKE THAT" and we were all just like....what the actual hell!!!! mom was also extremely thankful that we had stepped in for this whole situation.
the cops took information from us and then asked the girl what she had been doing that night, and this is the part that really set off all of the alarms: she said she had been at a bar in another neighborhood with her friends, they had "met some guys", then she couldn't remember how she ended up in the car or whose car it was, she didn't know where the friends had gone, and the next thing she could remember was being on the curb talking to us. like she had just completely blacked out from point A to point B.
so...what we think happened is that whoever she met at that bar had drugged her, and kicking her out of the car was the setup for whiteboy to come pick her up and do.....whatever sick shit he was planning to do with her. maybe because she would have been less likely to put up a fight if this guy was coming to "rescue" her? maybe because dropping her for him to pick up makes it harder to track where she went, if you don't want her to be found? maybe "we kicked her out of the car" would have been the driver's cover story if they were to be questioned about her disappearance. who knows!
it was just too fucking weird how he came right up to us and tried to take her, there's no way it wasn't related, in my opinion. we definitely did not live on a street where a friend of hers (who didn't know her name) would have been taking a casual stroll down the road at midnight waiting to pick her up....on foot. i forgot to mention that part; if this guy had arrived by car, it certainly wasn't parked anywhere we could see it. there was plenty of parking space on this street, too, there actually was a parking lot right next to the curb she had been sitting on, so why would he have parked his car far enough away that we couldn't see or hear it and then gotten out to go pick her up on foot? and the way he literally ran away without saying anything just confirms to me that he had sinister intentions. like, if you knew her, you would have argued with us about it. also, the way she said he looked like someone she'd seen before— was he at the bar that night?
also, why the hell did her "friends" drive all the way to this neighborhood to kick her out of the car? and why did they even kick her out!!! this neighborhood was pretty much entirely residential; there were no bars or businesses or anything around that would have given them a reason to be in the area. maybe one of them lived there and they were there to drop someone off, but if that was the case, i feel like the girl would have known that and brought it up to us. and that still doesn't explain why they would have dumped her there. i have so many questions about this night!!!
so, once the cops took everyone's info, the girl's mom thanked us again and left, and that's the end of the story. never heard anything more about it and to this day i wonder what the hell was actually going on that night. i also hope that girl is doing okay. it's crazy to me that if G hadn't needed to use the microwave we would never have known she was out there. i guess the moral of this tale is that if you see someone in distress it's always a good idea to check on them, because shady shit like this happens all the time and you never know whose life you could be saving by stepping in.
also, i apologize to all my smallweb buds for being MIA for a long while
i've just been overwhelmed by Everything lately, between wedding planning and the state of the world, and haven't had any "being social online" energy. but i am fine! now, onto this crazy-ass story.
it happened a few years ago, outside our old apartment. it was late, close to midnight, and we had a friend over to watch something-- i think it was Drag Race? and we were having a normal time, just sitting around the TV and chilling. i'll refer to this friend by his initial, G. the other people present were my partner and two other friends, who i'll call E and K.
G got up to use the microwave, which was next to the window. the windows in the frontroom faced the street, so if anything was going on outside you could hear it if you were standing there. if you were on the couch, you couldn't really hear outside noise, especially not over the TV. so, suddenly, while waiting for his food to heat up, G was like, "hey, mute the TV real quick, i think i hear a domestic violence incident happening outside?"
we did as he as asked and listened. he said he had heard at least one female and male voice screaming at each other, but by the time we all started listening, it had stopped. we peeked out the blinds (which looked funny, all of us huddled around the window like the seven dwarves lmao) and saw a girl sitting across the street, on the curb, with her back facing us, and she was alone and hysterically sobbing.
so, obviously this was fucking weird, because there was no reason for some random girl to be crying alone outside in the middle of the night. there were no apartments or houses on that side of the street, so we figured she probably hadn't come outside from her house just to cross the street and cry. whoever the male voice was that G heard had apparently gone away, because we watched her for a few minutes and she was definitely alone out there.
we all looked at each other, like, "uh. should we do something?" and agreed that we should check on her. the neighborhood we lived in at the time was pretty safe and quiet, but it was dark, the particular corner we lived on was a blind spot prone to car accidents, there were train tracks right next to the road, it was cold out, and she was in a "going out" outfit with no jacket.
myself, G, and K all agreed to go check on her while E and my partner stayed behind. we went in a group just in case this was something sketchy (we've all heard the horror stories of young girls being used as bait to abduct or rob people) because the three of us are all fruity transmasculine queers, so none of us are particularly threatening or capable of fending off an attack on our own. this turned out to be a really good call!!
going outside, we crossed the street and asked if she was okay. immediately we could tell she was drunk, but she seemed more than just drunk— she was almost incoherent, like she was on something else, and she could barely stand. she tried to get up from the curb to talk to us but we were like "it's okay, you can sit, do you need any water," etc. etc., and she explained the situation as coherently as she could: she had been in a car with "her friends", and they had kicked her out of the car for no reason and drove away, stranding her there. she didn't know what part of the city she was in or how to get home, and she'd been trying to call someone—i think it was her boyfriend, but she was having a hard time communicating clearly so i'm still not really sure—but they weren't able to help her for whatever reason, they were asleep or out of town or something like that. this person being unhelpful was just upsetting her more, so we got her to just hang up and we could try something else.
we were able to calm her down a bit and asked if she had anybody else she could call, and she wanted to try for her mom, so we told her to try that and we'd wait outside with her until we figured something out.
now, this is where the really weird shit happens. she called her mom, who thankfully answered the phone, and i remember one of us talking to mom as well just to clarify that her daughter was safe. mom said she'd come pick her up, but she lived a little far away so it would be about 20 minutes until she arrived. we assured her that this was totally fine, ended the call, that was that. made sure the girl didn't need food or water or a blanket, she said she was fine, kept thanking us for helping her.
so while we're waiting, some random white boy came walking down the sidewalk, quite literally out of the darkness because there weren't a lot of streetlights on this road. he was sorta young, maybe late 20s, looked clean-- hair was cut, beard was groomed, was dressed in a black t-shirt and sweatpants or something like that, but it was all black. definitely wasn't a homeless person; he looked like some regular college student. so he walked right up to us, with this weirdass smile on his face, and just said, "hey guys, what's going on?" as if he knew us. and we were just like "...we're just helping this girl out, do you know her or something?"
he was smiling through this whole interaction btw. like the entire time. none of us were smiling back so we were all thinking "the fuck is this dude so giddy about??" but it was such a faux friendliness, like...you know how you can just. sense when someone's vibes are off? the vibe was ROTTEN from this man. i've had plenty of interactions with creeps and weirdos before, but this is the only time i can say i have ever seen a genuine "creepy smile" from somebody.
anyway, he turned to the girl, who had gone back to sitting on the curb and kinda zoning out, and he started ASKING HER TO COME WITH HIM. he got all personable, like "haha hey yeah it's time to go, everyone's waiting!" and gesturing for her to get up and follow him. she was like ???? and looked like she was about to listen to him, but K had the foresight to say "hold on, do you know each other? do you know what her name is?"
whiteboy couldn't come up with her name but he kept pressing her to come with him, and then the girl said "you kind of look like i've seen you before but i don't know..." and K was like "okay, yeah, if you two don't know each other for sure you need to leave us alone now, we've got someone coming to pick her up already." the girl seemed to realize at that moment that she definitely didn't know this person, so she started telling him to fuck off, too.
so then, without saying another word, whiteboy turned to leave, started walking back down the sidewalk the same way he came, and then once he got to a distance where he must have assumed we weren't looking he started sprinting and disappeared into the night. just straight up booked it out of there, and it was too dark to see where he ran off to.
so obviously after that we were like what the fuuuuuck was that and decided to call police in case he came back or something. fuck cops but this was all extremely weird and we were suspecting that something very shady was going on. mom and the police showed up at about the same time; mom was a pleasant, suburban minivan type of lady.
first thing we did was ask mom if she or her daughter knew anyone matching the description of the guy, and we explained our bizarre interaction with him, and she barked out a very incredulous "WHAT THE FUCK? NO WE DON'T KNOW ANYONE LIKE THAT" and we were all just like....what the actual hell!!!! mom was also extremely thankful that we had stepped in for this whole situation.
the cops took information from us and then asked the girl what she had been doing that night, and this is the part that really set off all of the alarms: she said she had been at a bar in another neighborhood with her friends, they had "met some guys", then she couldn't remember how she ended up in the car or whose car it was, she didn't know where the friends had gone, and the next thing she could remember was being on the curb talking to us. like she had just completely blacked out from point A to point B.
so...what we think happened is that whoever she met at that bar had drugged her, and kicking her out of the car was the setup for whiteboy to come pick her up and do.....whatever sick shit he was planning to do with her. maybe because she would have been less likely to put up a fight if this guy was coming to "rescue" her? maybe because dropping her for him to pick up makes it harder to track where she went, if you don't want her to be found? maybe "we kicked her out of the car" would have been the driver's cover story if they were to be questioned about her disappearance. who knows!
it was just too fucking weird how he came right up to us and tried to take her, there's no way it wasn't related, in my opinion. we definitely did not live on a street where a friend of hers (who didn't know her name) would have been taking a casual stroll down the road at midnight waiting to pick her up....on foot. i forgot to mention that part; if this guy had arrived by car, it certainly wasn't parked anywhere we could see it. there was plenty of parking space on this street, too, there actually was a parking lot right next to the curb she had been sitting on, so why would he have parked his car far enough away that we couldn't see or hear it and then gotten out to go pick her up on foot? and the way he literally ran away without saying anything just confirms to me that he had sinister intentions. like, if you knew her, you would have argued with us about it. also, the way she said he looked like someone she'd seen before— was he at the bar that night?
also, why the hell did her "friends" drive all the way to this neighborhood to kick her out of the car? and why did they even kick her out!!! this neighborhood was pretty much entirely residential; there were no bars or businesses or anything around that would have given them a reason to be in the area. maybe one of them lived there and they were there to drop someone off, but if that was the case, i feel like the girl would have known that and brought it up to us. and that still doesn't explain why they would have dumped her there. i have so many questions about this night!!!
so, once the cops took everyone's info, the girl's mom thanked us again and left, and that's the end of the story. never heard anything more about it and to this day i wonder what the hell was actually going on that night. i also hope that girl is doing okay. it's crazy to me that if G hadn't needed to use the microwave we would never have known she was out there. i guess the moral of this tale is that if you see someone in distress it's always a good idea to check on them, because shady shit like this happens all the time and you never know whose life you could be saving by stepping in.
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