<Chris Hansen voice>“Please stand over there.”</Chris Hansen voice>
I have to wonder whether the police have opened a file on the OP, and the followup calls are to determine whether he is just a wannabe detective or a stalker in the making.
Arrest procedures that are not like in the movies.
How serious should I take charges of gunrunning in Canada? Need answer fast!
Which prisons have the best food? Need answer fast!
Ask the cell block bitch.
Am I the only one who thinks “Violent Stranger Online” sounds like the name of an online game?
Cops called again today just to follow-up and say thanks.
They were able to get in touch with the girl and they had this to say: “It turns out there are some other issues at play in her situation”. domestic abuse methinks?
It seems to me that a number of dopers feel that good samaritan moral obligations do not exist online.
i beg to differ.
if a young girl at your work or school was asking for a gun, wouldn’t you report it? yeah yeah I was very sneaky here by sending her a fake e-mail, but it was the only fast way to remedy the situation.
I find this entire thread to be terrifying. It honestly sounds like the beginning of a progression of weirdo paternalist creepy stalker behavior that ends with the OP choking her out and stuffing her body in the wall “to keep her safe.” :eek:
Dude.
Your intentions were good, but IMO the way you went about helping was certainly suboptimal and could have gotten you in a bunch of trouble if things had been a bit different. Plenty of posters have explained the hows and whys.
I am glad things turned out good for the girl and you, but again, IMO you really need to think before you leap next time.
I would try to find out why she was so desperately fearful, thought she was in need of self-defense, and was in the hospital with a black eye.
It is stunning to me that you witness a person in apparent fear for their life, and that does not interest you at all. What does interest you is getting them in trouble for something they haven’t even done yet,* and may not seriously plan to do. In fact you characterize this person as “violent” and the fact that there are “additional circumstances,” very likely domestic violence comes as a surprise to you.
It’s not about being sneaky, it’s about your disregard for the obvious likelihood that this “violent person” is herself in a great deal of danger. I’m glad the police aren’t as thick as you.
*I am aware that the Violent Person Online is very likely guilty of solicitation. I am referring to actually procuring the gun.
What I wonder, is there even a girl trying to by a gun or was the ad placed by the police to look for people who would ‘help’ a girl out? It is almost a vague solicitation for a hit man.
Is this a police sting where a detective trolls the internet posing as a young girl?
The real danger that I see is only to the OP who responded to the add. A high probability that he is being gamed by the police. The police he is in contact with may not know who placed the add, and if it is another police agency they wouldn’t say. The possibility that the police are going to keep the OP in the loop and tell the ‘good samaritan’ what is going on is remote, for any number of legal reasons, even if the story is real.
Well intentioned, to be sure, but not wise.
The impression I got from the concerned dopers and how I took you’re OP is that you’re a creepy stalker. Instead of telling the girl what she is doing is wrong you lie to her and try to get more information about of her and when you find a picture of her you decide to share it here.
You could have called the cops on her post without ever contacting her. If that is what you had done and not lied to her and then stalked her I would think you were being a good samaritan.
No I wouldn’t report it that’s stupid. I would tell the person if they wanted a gun to go buy one from a gun store.
A faster way to “remedy” the situation would have been for you to call the cops immediately after you saw the post. Not lie to her, stalk her, wait for her reply, then come here and post about it and THEN call the cops.
What was the point of finding her fbook page and posting a picture of her in this thread? That skeeved me a lot.
can we get a “creepy stalker” icon made for the greasemonkey script?
No, because I live in a country where the freedom to own various classes of weapons is, in general, not heavily restricted. Of course everything depends on circumstances. As a Canadian, what you did was completely natural to you. Bravo, and I hope you helped that girl out. The very same story in Michigan, though, I’d have to accuse you of being a busybody and not minding your own business. (I’d still flag the post on craiglist, though, because firearms (not the training) is against their policy.)
You’ve got a lot of nerve acting like you were just trying to be a Good Samaritan to a poor innocent abused woman. You were trying to get this woman in legal trouble. If she benefited from your creepy little entrapment/cyber stalking scheme then that’s great for her, but anyone who’s read this thread knows you weren’t concerned for her safety.
Ding! Ding! Ding! You and **Jodi **nailed what I was thinking.
Also:
That would be awesome and I can think of a couple of people I’d like to see it attached to.
Upon initially reading the craigslist post, I was absolutely aware of the significant possibility that this girl was a victim of domestic abuse. I don’t like to make assumptions however, and ultimately that scenario does not alter my response. Victim or not, she still sounded like a very dangerous person (who struck me as a pontential threat both to herself and others) to be obtaining her first firearm illegally.
By facebooking her, I was able to verify that domestic abuse did seem quite likely, and I strongly emphasized that point in talking to the police, including vividly describing the image.
I am willing to concede with the camp of dopers who think that responding to her anonymous craigslist account with a stern e-mail about her situation and lots of helpful advice & support may have been a viable route in this situation. However, I still feel that obtaining her contact info and letting professionals assess and deal with the situation was the safest and most responsible route.
So why did you post a picture of her here? That’s what creeps me out the most.
If you were really concerned you could have contacted the police immediately rather than playing games with this woman, trying to dig up personal information about her online, and weirdest of all posting links to her photo here.
Freudian: In retrospect I guess the posting picture was a rather intrusive move on my part. I was just so shocked by the ‘new mommy hospital & baby photos - complete with mom’s blackeye’ that I wanted to communicate the peculiarity and severity of the situation to the thread. A picture tells a thousand words and so on.
Lamia I would be surprised if they have the resources/inclination to rapidly track-down someone on an anonymous internet board for a post of this nature. I think if there were one or two extra words, it might be a different story. Like if she said “i am scared of my ex” or whatever, I think they would deal with it, but in this scenario it may have sat around for too long and I felt it was time sensitive.
I’m frankly amazed that you think anyone is going to buy this “Oh, I was just so worried about this poor abused young mother!” act. Although several people in this thread mentioned the possibility that this woman might be the victim of domestic violence, you didn’t say a thing about it here until well after you called the police on her. Your OP and later posts #31 and #39 indicate no concern at all for the woman. You refer to her as a “violent stranger”, “scary”, “the suspect” and “a seemingly unstable anonymous woman”. If this woman received any help due to your intervention it was in spite of, not because of, your motivations.
I don’t believe for one minute you posted her photo out of concern, either. In #5 you refer to her black eye as simply “odd”.
Your behavior here has been so bizarre and dishonest that I’m beginning to suspect that this woman is someone you know and that you have personal reasons for posting her photo and calling the police on her.