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.

I'm so confused by this, if it was basically just a foreign man in the park that she completely misrepresented how were random people on facebook managing to trace him? And then if it wasn't reported to the police till much later how did the police find him and question him? It's all baffling to me.

He'd visited the same park with his children several times, she described how he looked. As I said, it's a small town, so when went to the same park and other places nearby, people noticed him and took photos. I can't even be sure that the photos and posts saying "he's currently at X" were definitely him or the correct person.

He's staying nearby so maybe the police traced him on CCTV or doorbells? I don't know exactly. They just said they'd investigated, identified him and spoken to him. It was reported the evening of the same day, by the dad.

All I know about the situation is what was posted on Facebook.

Do you think OP is making this up? I googled and found a statement from Andy Tree on FB. There were lots of comments from residents too.

She's made the point several times that this (proven, verified and easily searchable) story is made up. They keep taking down the troll-hunting, she just comes back.

I don't really understand why people would not believe you. It is not the first time something like this has happened.

Have just read what the local councillor said about the incident on Facebook. He said that it was clear that the mother and aunt were obviously distressed and were right to report the incident. So sounds as though she did report it.

I just don't understand how she doesn't believe me when someone else from my town has come on here and commented about it!

Before it was outed, I offered to show the mods screenshots of the group. Now she's able to google it herself if she wanted to.

Reporting is one thing. Focusing on nationality and ethnicity is quite another, and we all know what that thing is.

The police said they received one report. The dad said in comments on posts he was the one to report it, later in the evening. Andy Tree's post says the police were contacted "later". The mum initially said she called them at the time and only in comments on her post when people said "why haven't you called the police?".

Andy did said that they were "shaken" and right to report it. He also said that the child approached the man, that no crime had been committed and that he wasn't a local Afghan refugee. He also said he'd tried to speak to the family and they hadn't responded.

I don't think you'll ever find an independent politician say that anyone shouldn't have reported any incident. He'd get himself lynched!

The police say that they’ve spoken to the man (who is not from Afghanistan). He’s on holiday in the area with his family. He was in the park with his family. No crimes were identified.

Oh well, nobody died. There's a lot more going on in the world.

@SloppyThePoodle I’m with you on that, genuinely. It feels like when everyone thought that people thinking that Facebook was listening to them and then advertising what they were talking about should wear a tinfoil hat.

I have family members who have been radicalised by Facebook. They didn’t use it, but now are foaming at the mouth over Muslim people and every conversation reverts back to this one topic.

I’m genuinely worried about where things leading to.

This time.

Exactly.

Well yes quite but the OP seems to have got information wrong in her opening post, maybe she should have posted a link to what the councillor said.

I haven't got any information wrong. I wasn't intending for it to be announced which small town FB group I'm referring to.

Until the day a mob gets together and kills someone for being a little bit brown and foreign looking in the wrong place. It's going to happen. Minimising and pretending people worried about the phenomenon of online incitement of hatred are lying contributes to bringing that day closer.

Who was in danger of dying?

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Someone dying isn’t the baseline.

In that case you shouldn't have mentioned the councillor's name. You made it easy to google and link his name to this incident. Maybe you should ask for this thread to be deleted if you don't want the town to be known.

I doubt they want the thread deleted.