Over the past week, the media has once again shown its lack of good journalism when it comes to reporting about stuff on the web! A 31 year old ex. marine web-dated a person. It got serious, he told his family he was going to Britain to meet this 19 year old girl and off he went. They then travelled together to Germany through Paris, her stopping by a pay-phone to call her parents to say everything was ok. Oh, and the girl in this case was really 12 years young. And that’s as far as the facts takes us and speculation begins. CNN tried to keep an open mind about it, but when he was arrested they started the “predators on the internet” talks. And “Aftonbladet” in sweden didn’t even tell the facts but told the story so it sounded like a straight up kidnapping. And without knowing exactly what happened I can’t really defend the guy, but I gotta make some pointers here. Did he really know she was 12? I’m pretty sure young people today do what we did which was to lie about our age to seem more mature. And especially on the ‘Net, it’s really easy to get away with it too! I can very well imagine them two in a chat room with her saying she was 19 or something! And when they finally did meet IRL, he must’ve gotten the point she wasn’t that old, but so? What 12 year old hasn’t wanted to run away from home but doesn’t have a good alternative plan? This girl got one served up, what’s to suggest she didn’t leave on her own will? I can’t see any way that a person can be unwillingly dragged through three airports, with all the security they have today, without being able to call for help in any form. And is there a law out there against 12 year old people running away from home and travelling abroad?
But the dude was arrested right away in Germany, and he has a prior for sexual assault, so he might have done something wrong somewhere along the line, but I’m atleast giving him the benefit of a doubt and I’m really interested to see what he’s charged with, cause as far as I know, nothing he did was illegal. And for all the “what tha hell was he thinking!?” people out there, go see “Léon”, I’m pretty sure this guy had.
You must be logged in to post a comment.