Racist vigilantes on local FB page

[FromanEmpire]

I live in a small town with a military history. As such, we have had quite a few Afghan refugees settled here.

A few days ago, a woman posted to say that an Afghan refugee had been in the park and walking around watching her toddler. She turned away to feed her other child, and when she turned back, he was holding her toddler and walking off. She asked her sister who was with her to go and get the toddler back. Then, apparently, he said no to the sister several times and said he was taking the toddler home with him. Eventually, the toddler was returned.

Cue extensive outrage all over the Facebook page. Comments calling for riots and violence, comments locating the man involved, comments getting a few men together for a game of "human football"... Obviously people asked why she hadn't called the police and she said she had but they weren't interested.

Anyway, then there are posts of the man in different locations and people threatening to go after him.

Then, it turns out, the woman has partly lied and partly told half-truths about the whole things. Firstly, not a local Afghan refugee at all. Not local, on holiday. Not Afghan, police confirmed he's not Afghan but didn't say what he is. Not a refugee, here on holiday (we live in a touristy place). Police also confirmed it wasn't reported to them until the evening - and also that the report was made by a man. So, she didn't report to the police - just to Facebook.

It also turns out, the man was in the park with his own children (she made it sound like he was there alone) and that the toddler approached him, while the mum wasn't paying any attention, and asked to be picked up. And, of course, very strange that if a man were walking off with your toddler, you'd just ask him nicely to put them down...

Frankly, I feel really uncomfortable by this. This woman has blatantly lied and misled people to try and rile up a riot. I'm also scared by how many people were commenting incredibly racist things and calling for violence against (what turned out to be) an entirely innocent man. I'm really shocked, and I like where I live less now.

Was this incident in Crick?

I just googled it and the first thing that came up were adverts for holiday cottages and hotels. Seems pretty popular to me?

Uh huh. Except I know these people are real...

Well the actual person who "did it" who was not the person accused of doing it, was probably advised not to pick up a child even when they asked. You appear to have got stuck in the fact that the person "given advice" was the person falsely accused - they are two seperate people.

The advice could’ve simply been “do not interact with children while brown, these people are nuts”.

This is not the case OP is talking about, obviously. But here is another example of on line vigilantism.

This is what happens when endless online hate is being posted about refugees.

Afghan refugee attacked in Limerick after being wrongly accused by far-right group of approaches to children – The Irish Times share.google/4Dw8pUtBRwGFIsTVB

Not just on Facebook. It is here too, on this very site. IMHO.

Eta: different method, but same aims.

I’m always very sceptical of social media posts about “a foreigner/someone who looks foreign spying on and/or attempting to steal someone’s child. I would be very if I read a post that the parent calmly asked the would be kidnapper to put their child down as I’m fairly sure in the same situation I would be anything but calm.

And it’s always, always someone who is perceived as basically an outsider- not white British. I’ve seen those kind of posts saying the dodgy looking man looked Polish. What does a Polish man look like compared to a white bloke from Kent (for example)?

Sickening. I rarely come across hate threads but try to avoid topics likely to provoke, mostly because you can't argue with stupid. Look at the lack of logic on this thread, it's enough to make you weep.

Yeah, that was my first initial eyebrow raise moment. I would have my hands back on my child immediately. The mum didn't even go over herself - she asked her sister to go over and get her toddler back! Rabid wolves wouldn't have stopped me getting to my child in that circumstance!

I don’t know, but I’ve been told I look English so I must’ve assimilated well . 😬

YANBU, I've seen the same on FB pages too and it's actually really worrying.
There was one about a couple of men (black) who were sat on a bench in the park.
Some of the comments were foul, making out they shouldn't be there, insinuating all sorts and it was wrong etc.
What, someone sat in a park? It didn't go down well when people asked what they were supposed to have done. It's not against the law to sit in a park.
One of them ended up coming onto the page to defend themselves, they were innocent and it honestly makes me sick pages are like this.
Something needs to be done about it.

I'm sure it's better to be safe than sorry when protecting against sexual assaults- don't you?

EtA: I'm not advocating violence but if only so many of you were as vehement in protecting the Rotherham girls. I guess their truth being disputed, didn't matter.

To be honest the OP's posts aren't that clear.

I don't think making up lies about someone because they're a different race is "being safe".

If I were in a park with my DCs and a toddler came over to me asking me to lift them up (if they were crying or wanting to be lifted onto a something in the park, etc) and their mum wasn't paying attention, I'd probably pick them up. No one would ever post "petite white woman tried to kidnap my child" on Facebook if I did do that.

If this woman genuinely believed he were the danger she was pretending he was, she wouldn't have lied and twisted the story - and she would've actually phoned the police when she said she did.

Do you think women lying about non-white men (like this woman did) means women/girls like the Rotherham girls are more or less likely to be believed in the future?

The fact is that this woman did lie.

The opposite of "not believing white female victims of non-white male crimes" is not "supporting white women lying about non-white men committing crimes". You can, and should, believe women who are victims of crimes whilst condemning women who lie about it.

I wouldn't pick up anybody else's child, without their parent's permission - unless it was to save the child.

You keep making this about race. Isn't there good and bad in every race?

Are you now saying that the child asked to be lifted on to a swing or something?

I wouldn't do that if a child asked me. I'd ask them where their parent was.

Absolutely.

We don't know why the child asked to be picked up. The dad just said that the child had asked to be picked up and he was angry about it because the police said that, because the child asked to be picked up, it wasn't a crime when the man picked up the child. I was just giving a few reasons why it would be fair enough to pick up a child.

I picked up a child last year at the beach in Cornwall. He was the youngest and was behind his family. They walked through a bit of a (very shallow) stream on the beach and he was still in his trainers so didn't want to cross but couldn't get his own trainers off. He was upset and we were walking the same way so I picked him up and carried him across. The mum turned around when we were almost across and came back and thanked me. Very normal thing to do.

@Dangermoo Your posts will only be deleted if you post anything delete worthy, surely?! Not because someone runs to MN and tells them to
It doesn't work like that

I haven't even reported her, at all, for any of her posts - she's repeatedly reported me!