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.

How do you know that? I reported you for this thread, which I still stand by.

A normal thing to do if parents are there and they have said it's OK for you to do that, but not ok to just pick up a child without asking parents first, regardless if you're male or female.

We had one of these sort of things, it turned out it was a load of bollocks, cooked up by a racist (quoting Tommy Bloody Robinson) hiding behind an alleged sexual assault, then trying to tie in the lie with an actual sexual assault that was committed by a white Brit. The local Reform councillor stoked up the hate too. We even had reports that Afghan men were hanging around schools (they can't have been as they hadn't been relocated at the time). The police had to step in to say it was all lies, nothing had been reported.

The scum even set up a go fund me for their cause.

Facebook do absolutely bugger all about these racists, and yet seem to ban people i know for less.

What's wrong with this thread? It is a worry, all these wannabe social media vigilantes are seriously worrying.

I think that depends if the parents are nearby and paying attention. I don't think I did anything wrong and nor did the mother of the child.

I would like to think everyone is on their guard, when it comes to the protection of children.

You still haven't said what the significance is, of the town's military history.

Yes I have. It's the first line of the OP. Please stop with your desperation to start a bunfight and get the thread removed.

Yes, I mean it's literally right there in your opening post....🤔

No, you said it's a military down and as such, there are Afghan refugees. I don't see how one leads to another.

In that situation I would have said to the parent "would you like me to carry him across" not just assumed it was OK and just picked the child up. You're lucky that she didn't give you a mouthful.

You only have to look at some of the threads on here to know that some mothers don't like other people even touching their toddlers let alone picking them up.

She's just not over the fact that she made several posts saying this scenario wasn't real and troll-hunting... it turns out that it is, provably and verifiably, true so she's moved onto starting fights on every single thing I said. I haven't replied to those up until this point but it's ridiculous now. Can we block posters on here?

What has that got to do with the topic, anyway?
It's almost like you're trying to derail and go off on a tangent so the topic isn't spoken about.. Hope others can see this and don't engage.

No block button on here, you can just ignore though.
Think they call it "grey rocking" 🙂

She was walking off ahead on a windy beach out of earshot. If people don't want other people looking out for their crying child then they should pay attention.

Are you going to provide evidence to the correlation between a town steeped in military history, equalling Afhganistan migrants?

What are your thoughts on racist vigilantes on FB and other social media sites?

Awful as is race baiting.

Yes, but what is its significance - if you can tell me how a military town equals Afghan migrants, I would appreciate it.

What has a military town got to do with this story?

What are your thoughts on racist vigilantes on social media pages, like FB? You know, the topic of the thread?

From my perspective, the fact it’s a military town means Afghan people who worked with British forces have been inclined to move there? I could be wrong.

Just seen this.
Ok. Who's race baiting though?

She answered above