Crazy Wimmin

I saw a tiger ...






So I’m driving home from work last night, listening to the radio, and this screeching tone interrupts the song. You know the one – that Emergency System tone that modulates from shriek to squeal to growl for 20 seconds in a bid for your attention, as if the first three seconds is not enough. In the past, you’d be treated to this cacophony, only to hear, “This is a test. This is test of the Emergency Message System.” Lately, however, there haven’t been many tests. Lately that awful sound precedes an Amber Alert. A child is missing, and giving the statistically short window for recovering kidnapped or lost children, the police are asking for all eyes now, if you please.

The Amber Alert asked for all to be on the look-out for a missing 9-year old. I simultaneously sent up a prayer that they find her in one piece, and listened for additional information. It is in another county, so I won’t see any suspicious cars driving by. The girl’s mother was also kidnapped. By two black men.

Damnit.

I can almost feel heads nodding in this area, “Of course.” I can also almost hear others wondering if this is real or just another Crazy Wimmin hoax. I simultaneously pray for the victims and protest the jaded among us who are willing to tar an entire race as criminal because of yet another violent crime perpetrated by “black men”. And, I protest those who are quite willing to believe that this is just another woman making up an African-American bogeyman.

It’s a strange phenomenon, these women who make up attackers and color them black, as if that will male their story more believable. There was that woman who drove her car into a river with her two small children in the backseat, and blamed it on black men. There was the woman who carved a ‘B’ in her own face, and blamed it on a large, black, disgruntled Obama supporter. Surely there is a limit to the number of crazy women who do bad things and make up fictitious black assailants to blame them on. Surely a real daughter and real mother are in real danger, requiring hard-nosed investigators and dogs and door-to-door searches. Surely there are bad men in need of capture and punishment. So I prayed for the safe recovery of little girl and her mother.

I checked for news today, hoping for a happy ending. We could do without another murder – especially that of a child – for forever, frankly. Here is what I read. Seems the mother called 911 from her cell reporting that she was thrown in the trunk of a car with which she had had a traffic accident. Her daughter was in the car too. Seems the father came on the Today Show begging for the return of his daughter and ex-wife. Seems the police did indeed go door-to-door seeking leads, and later found her car in Center City. Seems there’s now some Philadelphia Airport video showing the mother and daughter boarding a plane to Orlando, Florida. Fake ID, cash payment for one-way tickets, the whole ugly shebang.

All those people looking. All those police resources spent. All that fear. The father’s tears, another daughter (left behind) writing beseeching messages on their mother’s Facebook account. All the angst and all the prayers … wasted. Well, maybe not the prayers; they are apparently not in danger.

The police are no longer looking for two black male kidnappers in Philadelphia. Instead, the FBI is now looking for a 9-year old girl and her mother in Florida.

Damnit.

Oh wait. I just checked. They found the mother and daughter, and took them into custody. The FBI must be thrilled.