Every day we receive numerous inquiries on the ZDDK wall and by email as to whether a warning about child catchers in any car in front of any school in any city that is circulating on Facebook is true.
Car type, color, school name and city vary in these alerts. While many of these warnings are simply modified versions of the White Bully story , some of these warnings could of course be true in individual cases.
Therefore:
We cannot always respond to these requests. Please contact the police directly.
Basics on the topic
There have been many different warnings of this kind in recent months and years.
In some cases, letters from the school were used as evidence. In some cases, media reports were used as a hook.
What they all had in common, however, was that the warning usually appeared first on Facebook.
Unfortunately, we found that letters from schools based on rumors often frightened parents and children more than they informed them. In some cases there was a literal warning “not to get into a white Bully”.
What if an actual perpetrator had used a RED Bully? The highlight of this hysteria was probably the warning issued by the Saarland Ministry of Education to the schools there.
In this respect, we unfortunately have to (first of all) doubt such letters from schools as long as there is no police report about them.
Similar reports that make it to the press via Facebook while there is no identical police report should first be clarified with the responsible police station.
An example:
Bild Zeitung: This is how my daughter escaped from a child molester
http://www.bild.de/news/inland/kindesverkehrs/so-entkam-meine-tochter-einem-kinderschaender-26343138.bild.html
Incidentally, these stories are of course also available in the English-speaking Facebook area. Then a “white van” drives around. But there are also variations in color and location.
Distributing vehicle images with such warnings
We have sometimes seen such warnings with pictures of vehicles including visible license plates. Regardless of the veracity of the report, anyone who posts or shares such images may be liable to the owner for privacy violations.
Please remember: searches are the responsibility of the police!
Actually, it shouldn't require a Facebook warning:
Parents should instill in their children not to go with strangers or ride in strange vehicles. However, children should also have a healthy distrust of friends and relatives when unusual behavior occurs.
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )