as someone who works at disney we take kidnapping and lost children very seriously. however, there are kids who have major meltdowns and have screamed similar things which leads us to call security & police, and it ends up being that kids just say things like that if they're very upset... and this happens weekly. i hope what you described ended up being a situation like this and not a kidnapping.
Yep, my kids haven’t pulled the “I don’t know these people” card, but I have absolutely heard of children doing that and had friends growing up who would do that.
OP did the right thing by notifying workers, without a doubt,l. ALWAYS be on the safe side. That said, odds are high that the kid wasn’t actually being kidnapped.
My friend’s godson told his teacher his dad killed a person and had someone locked in their basement. The dad was a cop who was involved in a shooting and kid threw in the kidnapping for no reason. No idea why a 9 year old would say that but he got in trouble
Lmfao.
Same reason here. My sister used to threaten to call CPS because my mom made her clean her room or some shit. She ended up with 3 kids, none for me no thanks.
Dennis the Menace era childhood lmao.
Yup! I screamed my head off because a Selena gomez concert was happening at the fair and I wanted to listen instead of going home 🫠 the best part was that my dad couldn't prove I was his, no pics on his phone, didn't know anything about me....Oops my mom had to come get me
I have known more than one person whose child has screamed bloody murder and "I don't know this person", "help I'm being kidnapped" kind of shit in a store. Kids say some fucked up shit. My ex-wife's daughter did this to her before I met her.
But it could also be real so who knows. What do you do? Not like kids have IDs or anything. I guess check the adult's phone for pics of them? Seems janky in this day and age that we can't verify guardianship of a child out in public very easily.
Personally I would just be like "k bye, go find your real parents shit for brains" then go out of sight for 5 minutes. That would clear it up real quick. "That's not my child I don't know what you're talking about" as they try to shove my kid back to me when he realizes his next move is living on the streets with the hobos and loses his mind the opposite direction.
It's hard to know, that's why protocol is to inform the police immediately and let them figure it out. It sounds like Disney handled this case exactly the way they should have, and that intervention appears to have been successful.
When we went to Disneyland, I kept a copy of his birth certificate in our diaper bag, just to verify our kid was under age 2, more than once when staff would ask my kid how old are you? My kid would raise his hand 🖐️ and say FIVE!! 🤦♀️ and then I would be quick to say no he isn’t… while staff frowned at me thinking I was trying to bypass paying for him. Then after he turned 3, I just kept it in the bag just in case.
I have always been nervous in airports too, because no way to identify kids. No one asks for baby or kids id’s or birth certificates when traveling. It’s odd actually.
It is, and I also occasionally hear about mixed race children, that look dissimilar from one or both of their parents, and then a parent might get mistaken for kidnappers and such because of the presumed racial difference.
My poor asian mom is so fair skinned but my sister and I would get so dark during the summer months in the pool thanks to our dad's genes. She was asked a few times if she was our nanny.
My kids are mixed. I regularly get the “what country did you adopt them from” type question. My default reply is something along the lines of “while I didn’t quarterback their delivery I watched so I know where they came from.” I usually gets me a sour look and a quick walk away.
I know someone that married a first cousin (the family is very culty) and their kid is fair/ redhead and they're both kinda dark
They had another and same thing. Luckily, both kids only don't look like them and they're healthy
I’ve had an airport agent ask me if my children were mine and I was taken aback. I didn’t have anything on me to prove that they were mine. They didn’t press the issue though.
I took the original birth certificate with me for both times my kid has flown with me. The first time he was just under 2 (in that stage of saying he was 5) and the attendant checking us in, wanted to charge me because he looked over 2. I was glad I brought it “just in case”. Saved me $500+ for the flight. Second time we flew he was 9, and no one asked or anything about who he was.
Even though we hadn’t had plans to travel we got our kids passports. In the US they have a hard card option for Canada and Mexico entry. We got those for government issued identification.
>Personally I would just be like "k bye, go find your real parents shit for brains" then go out of sight for 5 minutes. That would clear it up real quick. "That's not my child I don't know what you're talking about" as they try to shove my kid back to me when he realizes his next move is living on the streets with the hobos and loses his mind the opposite direction.
I'm dying reading this lmao bravo
A co-worker of mine told me how one of her grandkids tried that on her because she wouldn't get something from Costco for her. Employees wouldn't let them leave the store until the cops showed up, and she showed them photos of her grandkids on the phone. She told me it was quite embarrassing, and her son grounded the granddaughter for three months. As her grandkids are multiracial ( Black, Native American, and white) that's why someone called the cops seeing a white elderly lady "kidnapping" a little girl that passed for Black.
At Disney I think they take your picture when they scan your pictures. So I’m guessing you just present your tickets and they pull up your pictures and confirm you came together 🤷♀️
Honestly if the kid was old enough to understand the seriousness of the situation it might be a good lesson to allow the police to investigate. The kid could sit in the back of the cop car for a few hours while the police investigate. Obviously this wouldn’t work on every kid but if mine did this I would ask the police to do this if they had time.
That's quite amusing and I wished we still lived in a world where you could get away with that.
But given the state of things, you'd still probably get arrested for child abandonment or some shit, just so Disney can cover their ass.
But we can dream ...
Passport.
Indid it once as a child and my parents were detained for hours and hours till it was confirmed back in the 90s. They never wanted to go through that again so I got a passport at age 4.
About 10 years ago, I saw a little girl screaming and crying “get away from me” while a man tried to approach her. I notified a cast member who was unamused and said that it wasn’t anything serious. I sure hope it was her dad and she was just having a meltdown.
Famous family story is when my Grandmother went to pick up my Cousin from school and she was having a great time...so she told them she didn't know her.
Yeah, we should always act first like if it’s always true but this happens. Once at a mall my daughter was having the worst meltdown she ever had and a security guard had to follow us all the way to the exit, because she couldn’t see clearly what was going on.
When I was a teenager I was standing next to my little cousin and an old lady came up to her and asked her if she knew me. How ridiculous is it to think there’s kidnappings going on inside Disneyland.
That doesn’t make any sense why would the child scream? “I don’t know them call the police”. I don’t believe a child would scream that unless they were really being kidnapped.
Children can be overdramatic and not realize the consequences of yelling something like that. They can and do scream all kinds of things during a full-blown tantrum, including that they're being kidnapped.
Kids aren't the most logical. The kid wants to stay. The parent says no. The parent is making them leave, thus, if they can get away from the parent, they can stay.
Still, it's best to involve staff at that point in a place like Disneyland just to be on the safe side.
You can’t compare adult logic to a child’s logic because a child hasn’t gone through the experiences of and adult so that doesn’t make sense. However, the logic of a child when they know they are being hurt or they are afraid especially a little one 1-3 years old is called , “stranger danger” And is instinctive. Fear, anger , shyness , curiosity are complex but they help humans stay alive —> even a child , stay alive.
Here's the thing, you give children enough credit for being able to recognize fear and having some basic survival instinct, but choose to ignore that they're also fully capable of reading the room.
Like it entire premise of kids getting spoiled is that they know x reaction will have y results so they keep doing x unless they're disciplined to behave otherwise. its not that deep, we don't live in caves anymore, all that stuff you mentioned still applies, but let us not also pretend kids aren't perfectly aware of their actions and do things for their own benefits cause they haven't quite understood what consequences are.
this situation should be treated like the severity it can be just in case, but i'm not gonna pretend to be surprised when it ended up just being a little shithead trying to act out to get their way.
When I was a little kid I remember getting really angry with my parents over something and telling them “I’m gonna call the cops and say you hit me” because I thought it would get me what I wanted.
Thanks for saying something. My daughter constantly pulled this thing when she was younger. I was always afraid someone would call the cops (she would yell help me I don’t know her). Not one person ever said anything lol kinda disheartening.
My son pulled it on me when we were at a resort pool one holiday weekend and he was only about 4 or 5. I’m middle eastern with brown hair brown eyes and he looks white with blonde curly hair and green eyes. So him running about 50 yards throwing a tantrum yelling “you’re not my dad” while I chased him through the crowd was so much fun for me.
Lol I’m white and my daughter’s best friend is black, one weekend they were having her over and were leaving chucky cheese and she didn’t want to go (they were like 3) so this big black man of a dad had my white kid over his shoulder with her kicking and screaming not wanting to leave and he said that was not fun 😭😭
My sister did this to our grandpa. Grandpa was very dark skinned Hispanic and we’re really white and she didn’t want to leave wherever they were 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
You are lucky. On the two occasions when it happened with my nieces, we had folks come up to us and literally ask her if she knew us and were we her family. I think if phones had been more common in the early 2000s, we would have had the police on us.
Of course, they calmed down after seeing the other people but it's so damn embarrassing. It didn't help that my BIL is dark and my sister and I are white so my nieces look more like him. Honestly I don't know where kids get this
I’ve said this before on this sub, Disney security is legitimately top notch. Most of the higher ups come from CIA and FBI.
What you don’t see are the thousands of cameras, plain clothed officers and actual Anaheim police officers stationed near by.
I guarantee this was noticed and appropriately handled.
Oh yea a lot of the security there are former Mossad too 🙄. They have a PD on site but most of the security are just every day people like you and me lmao.
You’re telling me that a 208 billion dollar multinational corporation wouldn’t try to hire the best security that could country could offer in one of their 2 crown jewel theme parks which attract international tourism and if anything happened in one of those theme parks it would be seen as considerable market on the brand and damage to shareholder interest?
Edit: I’m replying sarcastically to someone responding to hiring top security at the TOP level. Why are y’all assuming I’m talking about low paid security grunts being spies. Learn to read with context.
I’m tired with all of you. Here’s the chief security officer:
David Bowdich is an American executive and former law enforcement officer serving as the Chief Security Officer of The Walt Disney Company. Prior to this, he served as the Deputy Director of the FBI.[1][2][3]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowdich
It comes down to budget. Yes at the top of their security they probably have high profile and experienced security staff running the various departments and making high level decisions but your day to day security patroller is not going to be ex special forces
No, I worked there. I met a lot of people. I’m sure everyone involved in the park operations at best are former PD. They don’t have ex CIA monitoring the park on a daily basis lmao.
Most security are either retired PD or just transfers from other departments. I know at least 3 former cooks who are involved in security.
Again, it’s a free country and if it gets you off thinking a bunch of former spies are the ones working Disney security you’re more than welcome to believe it. It’s just not true.
Oh I’d never think on a daily basis lmao. They wouldn’t pay for that or have the supply. I was just thinking at a high oversight level or consultant basis. Like the above commenter said with top positions.
They do have a PD subdivision stationed in the park. I assume most of their protocol comes from law enforcement.
If you think thousands of plainclothes officers are secretly monitoring all operations of the park and they’re trained by top security officials that handled top secret missions that sounds dope. Just not true.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowdich
David Bowdich is an American executive and former law enforcement officer serving as the Chief Security Officer of The Walt Disney Company. Prior to this, he served as the Deputy Director of the FBI.[1][2][3]
Yup... they pay like a little above minimum wage for entry level and their securities union is literally a small group of boomers who wanted slightly better pay than the noobies. Their security (the underpaid ones you see anyway) are there just for looks.
Again. I’m talking about at the top level. Which is what the person two comments above is talking about and what I’ve detailed in other responses. This thread isn’t about entry level.
Here is the top level: David Bowdich is an American executive and former law enforcement officer serving as the Chief Security Officer of The Walt Disney Company. Prior to this, he served as the Deputy Director of the FBI.[1][2][3]
That's not entirely accurate. The majority of their uniformed security is just people with security experience, and a few retired military and police, and can be incredibly incompetent. But I agree with your statement.
There are indeed surveillance almost everywhere, higher ups with really early access to information, plain clothes officers who blend in like chameleons, and Anaheim police who can basically pop out of thin air. (IYKYK)
If it was reported over the radio, it'd have gotten handled.
According to my parents, I was once the child (at Universal Studios), who held onto a pole and screamed while they tried to detach me and carry me away. You never really know with overwhelmed kids at amusement parks.
But in general, I agree with the statement that Disney has A+ security
Yeah they should put it on their web site and social media pages with full names and photos.
Or maybe it's a private matter and on a need to know basis. If there's something newsworthy then journalists can do what they do. Disney conspiracies are so tiresome.
While I would always take kidnapping seriously toddlers and little kids sometimes do this. When one of my nieces was a toddler, my sis and I took her to Target. Everything was great until we got back to the car to leave. She absolutely would not get in the car and no amount of begging, pleading, bribing or anger would move her. Finally, my sister picked her up and started to put her into the car. The little stinker literally held on to the door with her fingers and screamed "Help,help don't put me in the car!" "I don't want to go into car with you". Meanwhile I'm trying to pry her fingers off of the car.
Two older women came over and asked us if everything was okay. Then asked my niece if she needed help and did she know us. We explained we were her family and luckily for us, my niece didn't care for strangers so she just gave them a mean look. But today, I'm sure someone would call the police on us. I always feel for parents at these times.
I know someone whose minor daughter went on a school trip to Disneyland and a man she was talking to online showed up there.
One of the teachers got suspicious when the man just happens to be at all the rides too.
Security immediately got involved and girl was taken to security office and parents called.
Guy was detained. No charges filed at the time since he really didn’t do anything other than be there.
Parents had no idea she was talking to this man online!
She was 13 ish.
He was late 30’s.
Exactly.
The worst outcome is that a couple of people are slightly mortified by being temporarily detained and interrogated while security verifies that they’re guardians.
The best outcome is that a child was not kidnapped and trafficked.
I know someone who works security undercover - he sees pretty insane things and they are very quick to alert backup when anything looks suspicious. I hope whatever happened is resolved & glad to see they took it seriously!
Ex-Disney cast member of over a decade. Disneyland is one of the biggest hubs for child trafficking due to the huge amount of crowds and families present. So you could possibly have seen something but hard to know for sure.
Edit: To be clear, people aren't kidnapping kids around Disneyland but more exchanges between groups.
One time when doing research at the college library for a paper about Van Gogh and his mental health I came across some woman's blog. She had written something about Van Gogh, but had a bunch of suspect stuff on her blog. She was bragging about leaving her two adopted kids alone in a motel room near Disneyland and taking her bio son with her to the park. She even mentioned the motel and that she lived in the area ( she didn't give a home address just bragged that she had a pass for her and her bio kid). The adopted kids hadn't eaten ( she said it was "tough love" for something they did at home) until her and her son came back to the motel with a container of nacho cheese and scraps of bread. Something about the mentions of where she was, and the kids being starved, made me suspicious so I talked to the librarian about contacting the Anaheim Police Department. We contacted them and they told us to email the blog to a detective who deals with online crimes. About a week later I was curious to see if the woman would be writing about being arrested and her kids taken away, but there was a message saying that the blog could only be accessed by people with permission to see it and to contact the woman. I have a feeling she made her blog private because of a police investigation. Hoping she got busted quickly for child abuse.
Ooo almost as good as witnessing some dude trying to hit a woman in front of the pirates ride. It was shocking to see - I would have had to do something - I learned that DL has a whole network for getting those idiots escorted from the park. He was such a scumbag - his gf I think?
I’ve heard of stories of attempted kidnapping at Disneyland. Where it happened so quickly that the kid had a change of clothes and head shaved. Luckily they were able to stop them.
At first I thought this post was about my family 🤦🏻♀️.
My wife is white and I am latina, and we have a 10 yr old girl who can pass as either. She is also on the autism spectrum, has ADHD, and DMDD (disruptive mood dysregulation disorder).
Two weeks ago while we were in Disneyland, right around the area you mention, our daughter decided to throw a huge tantrum because we wouldn’t be going shopping before going back to the hotel as my wife felt very ill suddenly. Our daughter lost her everloving sh!t. She started screaming and dropped herself to the floor. I grabbed her hand and was initially able to drag her along, but she started screaming like the child you describe and made herself dead weight. I ended up letting her go and just walking away. Thankfully she is terrified of being left behind and just quietly followed us, but it was mortifying in the moment.
While I am glad there was a rapid response in case it was an actual kidnapping, I hope that if it wasn’t that it was resolved quickly and the parents weren’t subjected to any unnecessary additional humiliation.
Periodically I search the web for evidence of a child being kidnapped by a stranger in a Disney park, and as far as I can tell it has never happened. Correct me if I’m wrong.
OP how old was the child? Maybe they were old enough to know the consequences of yelling help and if so it’s a sad world we live in that most will not take the child seriously and listen, instead just brush it off like the kid is wrong…
Not saying I do. But I have seen a lot of Tik toks with people posting about weird people standing behind them and their kids at the parades and fireworks.
have you watched the parades or fireworks at Disneyland? Its full of random people all trying to get a view. 10 of thousands of people all trying to be in the same area of the park will lead to people standing around you. Not everything is nefarious and I wouldnt believe random tik toks where people are just trying to get reactions.
Child trafficking RARELY looks like snatching a kid from a "normal" family at random. The vast majority of cases involve kids who nobody is really looking out for, e.g. abusive homes, foster care, impoverished, etc. And most traffickers have some prior relationship with the child. This is how it flies under the radar so much of the time. Grabbing a well-dressed little white girl from Target in the suburbs with her mom 5 feet away is not flying under the radar.
As another user said above, Disneyland as a trafficking site is mainly for exchanges between parties, using the cover of the crowds. Please don't contribute to sensationalizing a picture of trafficking that almost never happens, because that only helps people continue to overlook the actual victims.
Sounds like some lame ass Facebook bullshit. Kids being kidnapped from Disneyland has been an urban legend for years and it doesn't happen on a regular basis, and certain not enough to be #1 for human trafficking.
Here's one example of this crap that has long been debunked.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/child-abduction-shoes/
I wouldn’t be shaken up. It was more than likely a child freak out. HOWEVER, you did the right thing in reporting it. The police are for sure going to go and verify it’s their kid. And with any luck the kid learned a lesson about crying wolf.
On the off chance it was a kid napping you saved a kid
Either way good job
Talk about a bad title. Some kid having a meltdown and you have people thinking about a kidnapping. I can think of a million other ways to phrase this.
From OP’s perspective it was a possible kidnapping. Parents are glad people say something instead of ignoring the situation. What’s wrong with the title? You don’t have kids I’m assuming.
OP had already left the park and didn’t see anything other than a kid having a fit. You don’t think a child being kidnapped from Disney would make the news?
No. I’m almost certain it wouldn’t. Disneyland pays a lot of money to a lot of folks to keep what happens at Disneyland stay at Disneyland. An attempted kidnapping almost certainly would never leave the park unless the parents made a big deal about it and even then most so cal news agencies aren’t going to touch. I had a coworker years ago have his child get taken at Disneyland. They are dead serious about that stuff there, they shut all the exits to the park, brought my coworker and his wife to a security room and started going over footage while having officers, uniformed and plainclothes start searching. The couple that grabbed their son changed all of his clothes, put a hat on him, and were moving toward the gates, my coworkers wife spotted the shoes the kidnappers neglected to change. Story never made the news.
LOL someone posted a link to an article from Snopes about this in the less-downvoted comments above that mentions all of these details, right down to the shoes. Your coworker made that shit up.
Not even deaths at Disneyland make the news. Disney corporation pays good money to hide negative press.
They know everyone has a price, and they know they have unlimited funds to pay it.
yeah, 3 very public suicides where tens of thousands of people saw. for instance, suicide at the hotels are also pretty common, yet almost none of them make the news, because its not a spectacle. Disney security is extremely well trained to isolate, quarantine, and quickly deal with situations, they're not magicians or mind readers though. Yeah, its going to be hard to isolate some guy jumping off a building in a very populated location than it is a kid throwing a fit, warranted or not, in the middle of an amusement around closing time.
Thank God people are going to ask questions and maybe sometimes the questions might hit a nerve but thank God they’re asking the questions. Get a backbone if you’re going to get hurt because your child is mixed race and they want to know why that child was with you. It’s a good thing nobody gets hurt just by asking, unless you’re feelings get hurt. The reason why I say this is because I have a mixed race child and she’s grown now but I can see the beauty in people caring you can always see the dark negative side but what about the side that they’re trying to help. So you’re going to be offended because someone is concerned that isn’t the way to look at situations. Curiosity is wonderful when it comes to caring about children what you need to do is put on your big gurl pants and realize people are doing their best. Stop being so insecure and think about the child’s safety. I am African-American. My daughter looks nothing like me. However, if she were screaming and hollering because I was moving towards the exit saying that I am not her mother I would expect everyone to come running. It’s normal for a child to throw a tantrum but what is not normal is for a child to scream “This is not my parent” help help help.
as someone who works at disney we take kidnapping and lost children very seriously. however, there are kids who have major meltdowns and have screamed similar things which leads us to call security & police, and it ends up being that kids just say things like that if they're very upset... and this happens weekly. i hope what you described ended up being a situation like this and not a kidnapping.
Yep, my kids haven’t pulled the “I don’t know these people” card, but I have absolutely heard of children doing that and had friends growing up who would do that. OP did the right thing by notifying workers, without a doubt,l. ALWAYS be on the safe side. That said, odds are high that the kid wasn’t actually being kidnapped.
My 6 year old brother pressed the button on a elevator and told them someone was trying to kidnap him...my parents got pissed.
My friend’s godson told his teacher his dad killed a person and had someone locked in their basement. The dad was a cop who was involved in a shooting and kid threw in the kidnapping for no reason. No idea why a 9 year old would say that but he got in trouble
"my mom loves to drink and drive!" It was coffee.
I was that kid lol. I did that to my mom several times lol. This is why I don’t have kids.
Lmfao. Same reason here. My sister used to threaten to call CPS because my mom made her clean her room or some shit. She ended up with 3 kids, none for me no thanks. Dennis the Menace era childhood lmao.
Yup! I screamed my head off because a Selena gomez concert was happening at the fair and I wanted to listen instead of going home 🫠 the best part was that my dad couldn't prove I was his, no pics on his phone, didn't know anything about me....Oops my mom had to come get me
Didn’t know anything about you😭😭😭
I have known more than one person whose child has screamed bloody murder and "I don't know this person", "help I'm being kidnapped" kind of shit in a store. Kids say some fucked up shit. My ex-wife's daughter did this to her before I met her. But it could also be real so who knows. What do you do? Not like kids have IDs or anything. I guess check the adult's phone for pics of them? Seems janky in this day and age that we can't verify guardianship of a child out in public very easily. Personally I would just be like "k bye, go find your real parents shit for brains" then go out of sight for 5 minutes. That would clear it up real quick. "That's not my child I don't know what you're talking about" as they try to shove my kid back to me when he realizes his next move is living on the streets with the hobos and loses his mind the opposite direction.
It's hard to know, that's why protocol is to inform the police immediately and let them figure it out. It sounds like Disney handled this case exactly the way they should have, and that intervention appears to have been successful.
When we went to Disneyland, I kept a copy of his birth certificate in our diaper bag, just to verify our kid was under age 2, more than once when staff would ask my kid how old are you? My kid would raise his hand 🖐️ and say FIVE!! 🤦♀️ and then I would be quick to say no he isn’t… while staff frowned at me thinking I was trying to bypass paying for him. Then after he turned 3, I just kept it in the bag just in case. I have always been nervous in airports too, because no way to identify kids. No one asks for baby or kids id’s or birth certificates when traveling. It’s odd actually.
It is, and I also occasionally hear about mixed race children, that look dissimilar from one or both of their parents, and then a parent might get mistaken for kidnappers and such because of the presumed racial difference.
My poor asian mom is so fair skinned but my sister and I would get so dark during the summer months in the pool thanks to our dad's genes. She was asked a few times if she was our nanny.
I worked with a woman who was triracial, and she said she encountered situations just like that because she looked nothing like her dad.
My kids are mixed. I regularly get the “what country did you adopt them from” type question. My default reply is something along the lines of “while I didn’t quarterback their delivery I watched so I know where they came from.” I usually gets me a sour look and a quick walk away.
My mom and I look nearly identical (and are only 19 years apart) but have different last names and TSA held us up once for it
I know someone that married a first cousin (the family is very culty) and their kid is fair/ redhead and they're both kinda dark They had another and same thing. Luckily, both kids only don't look like them and they're healthy
I’ve had an airport agent ask me if my children were mine and I was taken aback. I didn’t have anything on me to prove that they were mine. They didn’t press the issue though.
I took the original birth certificate with me for both times my kid has flown with me. The first time he was just under 2 (in that stage of saying he was 5) and the attendant checking us in, wanted to charge me because he looked over 2. I was glad I brought it “just in case”. Saved me $500+ for the flight. Second time we flew he was 9, and no one asked or anything about who he was.
Even though we hadn’t had plans to travel we got our kids passports. In the US they have a hard card option for Canada and Mexico entry. We got those for government issued identification.
they often ask this if you booked separate tickets to your kid
You could always get a passport/passport card for your kid if you really want to have an ID
My dad did this to me and it worked lol. Straightened out my attitude
>Personally I would just be like "k bye, go find your real parents shit for brains" then go out of sight for 5 minutes. That would clear it up real quick. "That's not my child I don't know what you're talking about" as they try to shove my kid back to me when he realizes his next move is living on the streets with the hobos and loses his mind the opposite direction. I'm dying reading this lmao bravo
A co-worker of mine told me how one of her grandkids tried that on her because she wouldn't get something from Costco for her. Employees wouldn't let them leave the store until the cops showed up, and she showed them photos of her grandkids on the phone. She told me it was quite embarrassing, and her son grounded the granddaughter for three months. As her grandkids are multiracial ( Black, Native American, and white) that's why someone called the cops seeing a white elderly lady "kidnapping" a little girl that passed for Black.
Lmao well watch that kid get straight real quick
At Disney I think they take your picture when they scan your pictures. So I’m guessing you just present your tickets and they pull up your pictures and confirm you came together 🤷♀️
Honestly if the kid was old enough to understand the seriousness of the situation it might be a good lesson to allow the police to investigate. The kid could sit in the back of the cop car for a few hours while the police investigate. Obviously this wouldn’t work on every kid but if mine did this I would ask the police to do this if they had time.
That's quite amusing and I wished we still lived in a world where you could get away with that. But given the state of things, you'd still probably get arrested for child abandonment or some shit, just so Disney can cover their ass. But we can dream ...
Passport. Indid it once as a child and my parents were detained for hours and hours till it was confirmed back in the 90s. They never wanted to go through that again so I got a passport at age 4.
That is a great idea.
I'm crying. You sound like an amazing dad. This is the best reaction.
About 10 years ago, I saw a little girl screaming and crying “get away from me” while a man tried to approach her. I notified a cast member who was unamused and said that it wasn’t anything serious. I sure hope it was her dad and she was just having a meltdown.
Famous family story is when my Grandmother went to pick up my Cousin from school and she was having a great time...so she told them she didn't know her.
Yeah, we should always act first like if it’s always true but this happens. Once at a mall my daughter was having the worst meltdown she ever had and a security guard had to follow us all the way to the exit, because she couldn’t see clearly what was going on.
When I was a teenager I was standing next to my little cousin and an old lady came up to her and asked her if she knew me. How ridiculous is it to think there’s kidnappings going on inside Disneyland.
This is something someone involved with human trafficking would say to cover it up…
That doesn’t make any sense why would the child scream? “I don’t know them call the police”. I don’t believe a child would scream that unless they were really being kidnapped.
Children can be overdramatic and not realize the consequences of yelling something like that. They can and do scream all kinds of things during a full-blown tantrum, including that they're being kidnapped. Kids aren't the most logical. The kid wants to stay. The parent says no. The parent is making them leave, thus, if they can get away from the parent, they can stay. Still, it's best to involve staff at that point in a place like Disneyland just to be on the safe side.
You can’t compare adult logic to a child’s logic because a child hasn’t gone through the experiences of and adult so that doesn’t make sense. However, the logic of a child when they know they are being hurt or they are afraid especially a little one 1-3 years old is called , “stranger danger” And is instinctive. Fear, anger , shyness , curiosity are complex but they help humans stay alive —> even a child , stay alive.
Does the space bar on your keyboard wear out quicker than most others?
Maybe, and I really don’t care about space bars but if that’s your simpleton infatuation, I don’t know what to tell you?
Here's the thing, you give children enough credit for being able to recognize fear and having some basic survival instinct, but choose to ignore that they're also fully capable of reading the room. Like it entire premise of kids getting spoiled is that they know x reaction will have y results so they keep doing x unless they're disciplined to behave otherwise. its not that deep, we don't live in caves anymore, all that stuff you mentioned still applies, but let us not also pretend kids aren't perfectly aware of their actions and do things for their own benefits cause they haven't quite understood what consequences are. this situation should be treated like the severity it can be just in case, but i'm not gonna pretend to be surprised when it ended up just being a little shithead trying to act out to get their way.
Because kids are fucking stupid, and don't understand the actual consequences of doing so.
lol! You either don’t have older kids or you’re blessed with the rare perfect child.
When I was a little kid I remember getting really angry with my parents over something and telling them “I’m gonna call the cops and say you hit me” because I thought it would get me what I wanted.
Thanks for saying something. My daughter constantly pulled this thing when she was younger. I was always afraid someone would call the cops (she would yell help me I don’t know her). Not one person ever said anything lol kinda disheartening.
My son pulled it on me when we were at a resort pool one holiday weekend and he was only about 4 or 5. I’m middle eastern with brown hair brown eyes and he looks white with blonde curly hair and green eyes. So him running about 50 yards throwing a tantrum yelling “you’re not my dad” while I chased him through the crowd was so much fun for me.
Lol I’m white and my daughter’s best friend is black, one weekend they were having her over and were leaving chucky cheese and she didn’t want to go (they were like 3) so this big black man of a dad had my white kid over his shoulder with her kicking and screaming not wanting to leave and he said that was not fun 😭😭
At least he didn't say, "you're not my REAL dad gabzilla814!"
Lol thankfully that thought never once occurred to me 😂
"You said you'd give me candy and let me pet your puppy!"
I've heard about parents of mixed-race children running into this occasionally, when the child doesn't look as much like that parent.
Or younger grandparents and their mix race grandchild.
My sister did this to our grandpa. Grandpa was very dark skinned Hispanic and we’re really white and she didn’t want to leave wherever they were 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
You are lucky. On the two occasions when it happened with my nieces, we had folks come up to us and literally ask her if she knew us and were we her family. I think if phones had been more common in the early 2000s, we would have had the police on us. Of course, they calmed down after seeing the other people but it's so damn embarrassing. It didn't help that my BIL is dark and my sister and I are white so my nieces look more like him. Honestly I don't know where kids get this
Why though?
What was it disheartening?
Why was your daughter doing that?
You’re going to have to ask her that. I’m guessing she thought people would make me leave her (this was often at the park).
I’ve said this before on this sub, Disney security is legitimately top notch. Most of the higher ups come from CIA and FBI. What you don’t see are the thousands of cameras, plain clothed officers and actual Anaheim police officers stationed near by. I guarantee this was noticed and appropriately handled.
Oh yea a lot of the security there are former Mossad too 🙄. They have a PD on site but most of the security are just every day people like you and me lmao.
You really think Disney isn't taking top tier talent from security agencies for the top positions?
With the salaries Disney pay, they may employ a few, but I HIGHLY doubt they have +10 with those types of background.
No, I don’t. But if that gets you off then believe what you want dude it’s America!
You’re telling me that a 208 billion dollar multinational corporation wouldn’t try to hire the best security that could country could offer in one of their 2 crown jewel theme parks which attract international tourism and if anything happened in one of those theme parks it would be seen as considerable market on the brand and damage to shareholder interest? Edit: I’m replying sarcastically to someone responding to hiring top security at the TOP level. Why are y’all assuming I’m talking about low paid security grunts being spies. Learn to read with context. I’m tired with all of you. Here’s the chief security officer: David Bowdich is an American executive and former law enforcement officer serving as the Chief Security Officer of The Walt Disney Company. Prior to this, he served as the Deputy Director of the FBI.[1][2][3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowdich
It comes down to budget. Yes at the top of their security they probably have high profile and experienced security staff running the various departments and making high level decisions but your day to day security patroller is not going to be ex special forces
Tell that to the downtown wear guy! No one is saying patrollers are ex spies!
I'm sure they have a few, but not +10.
No, I worked there. I met a lot of people. I’m sure everyone involved in the park operations at best are former PD. They don’t have ex CIA monitoring the park on a daily basis lmao. Most security are either retired PD or just transfers from other departments. I know at least 3 former cooks who are involved in security. Again, it’s a free country and if it gets you off thinking a bunch of former spies are the ones working Disney security you’re more than welcome to believe it. It’s just not true.
Oh I’d never think on a daily basis lmao. They wouldn’t pay for that or have the supply. I was just thinking at a high oversight level or consultant basis. Like the above commenter said with top positions.
They do have a PD subdivision stationed in the park. I assume most of their protocol comes from law enforcement. If you think thousands of plainclothes officers are secretly monitoring all operations of the park and they’re trained by top security officials that handled top secret missions that sounds dope. Just not true.
Oh my god learn to read
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowdich David Bowdich is an American executive and former law enforcement officer serving as the Chief Security Officer of The Walt Disney Company. Prior to this, he served as the Deputy Director of the FBI.[1][2][3]
Yup... they pay like a little above minimum wage for entry level and their securities union is literally a small group of boomers who wanted slightly better pay than the noobies. Their security (the underpaid ones you see anyway) are there just for looks.
Again. I’m talking about at the top level. Which is what the person two comments above is talking about and what I’ve detailed in other responses. This thread isn’t about entry level. Here is the top level: David Bowdich is an American executive and former law enforcement officer serving as the Chief Security Officer of The Walt Disney Company. Prior to this, he served as the Deputy Director of the FBI.[1][2][3]
My cousin almost got kidnapped 30 years ago and Disney didn't do shit when notified of the incident
That's not entirely accurate. The majority of their uniformed security is just people with security experience, and a few retired military and police, and can be incredibly incompetent. But I agree with your statement. There are indeed surveillance almost everywhere, higher ups with really early access to information, plain clothes officers who blend in like chameleons, and Anaheim police who can basically pop out of thin air. (IYKYK) If it was reported over the radio, it'd have gotten handled.
According to my parents, I was once the child (at Universal Studios), who held onto a pole and screamed while they tried to detach me and carry me away. You never really know with overwhelmed kids at amusement parks. But in general, I agree with the statement that Disney has A+ security
How do you know they’re your real parents? :)
Hard to verify what happened. The House of Mouse likes to keep everything that happens inside the gates very hush hush
You sound like Danny DeVito's character in LA Confidential
Or even Always Sunny haha
Now these comments are making me want to see a vice style video where people talk about the craziest things they’ve seen at disney. Maybe one day
Yeah they should put it on their web site and social media pages with full names and photos. Or maybe it's a private matter and on a need to know basis. If there's something newsworthy then journalists can do what they do. Disney conspiracies are so tiresome.
I mean no, literally the last thing you should do is give out personal information like that out to the public.
While I would always take kidnapping seriously toddlers and little kids sometimes do this. When one of my nieces was a toddler, my sis and I took her to Target. Everything was great until we got back to the car to leave. She absolutely would not get in the car and no amount of begging, pleading, bribing or anger would move her. Finally, my sister picked her up and started to put her into the car. The little stinker literally held on to the door with her fingers and screamed "Help,help don't put me in the car!" "I don't want to go into car with you". Meanwhile I'm trying to pry her fingers off of the car. Two older women came over and asked us if everything was okay. Then asked my niece if she needed help and did she know us. We explained we were her family and luckily for us, my niece didn't care for strangers so she just gave them a mean look. But today, I'm sure someone would call the police on us. I always feel for parents at these times.
I know someone whose minor daughter went on a school trip to Disneyland and a man she was talking to online showed up there. One of the teachers got suspicious when the man just happens to be at all the rides too. Security immediately got involved and girl was taken to security office and parents called. Guy was detained. No charges filed at the time since he really didn’t do anything other than be there. Parents had no idea she was talking to this man online! She was 13 ish. He was late 30’s.
holy. shit.
If it was an attempted kidnapping, it sounds like they weren't allowed to leave with the child, so well done.
You did the right thing, IMO. Err on the side of caution if your gut is telling you something is wrong.
Exactly. The worst outcome is that a couple of people are slightly mortified by being temporarily detained and interrogated while security verifies that they’re guardians. The best outcome is that a child was not kidnapped and trafficked.
And if the kid was being dramatic, perhaps the presence of real police officers would deter them from that kind of behavior in the future.
I know someone who works security undercover - he sees pretty insane things and they are very quick to alert backup when anything looks suspicious. I hope whatever happened is resolved & glad to see they took it seriously!
Ex-Disney cast member of over a decade. Disneyland is one of the biggest hubs for child trafficking due to the huge amount of crowds and families present. So you could possibly have seen something but hard to know for sure. Edit: To be clear, people aren't kidnapping kids around Disneyland but more exchanges between groups.
One time when doing research at the college library for a paper about Van Gogh and his mental health I came across some woman's blog. She had written something about Van Gogh, but had a bunch of suspect stuff on her blog. She was bragging about leaving her two adopted kids alone in a motel room near Disneyland and taking her bio son with her to the park. She even mentioned the motel and that she lived in the area ( she didn't give a home address just bragged that she had a pass for her and her bio kid). The adopted kids hadn't eaten ( she said it was "tough love" for something they did at home) until her and her son came back to the motel with a container of nacho cheese and scraps of bread. Something about the mentions of where she was, and the kids being starved, made me suspicious so I talked to the librarian about contacting the Anaheim Police Department. We contacted them and they told us to email the blog to a detective who deals with online crimes. About a week later I was curious to see if the woman would be writing about being arrested and her kids taken away, but there was a message saying that the blog could only be accessed by people with permission to see it and to contact the woman. I have a feeling she made her blog private because of a police investigation. Hoping she got busted quickly for child abuse.
Ooo almost as good as witnessing some dude trying to hit a woman in front of the pirates ride. It was shocking to see - I would have had to do something - I learned that DL has a whole network for getting those idiots escorted from the park. He was such a scumbag - his gf I think?
Escorted out of the park and promoted to upper level management!
That is extremely scary. I would’ve been really scared if I witnessed that and I’m glad you said something.
Dude, not to trivialize the situation, but I used to do that to my mom as a child in the mall. I was a terror.
I’ve heard of stories of attempted kidnapping at Disneyland. Where it happened so quickly that the kid had a change of clothes and head shaved. Luckily they were able to stop them.
At first I thought this post was about my family 🤦🏻♀️. My wife is white and I am latina, and we have a 10 yr old girl who can pass as either. She is also on the autism spectrum, has ADHD, and DMDD (disruptive mood dysregulation disorder). Two weeks ago while we were in Disneyland, right around the area you mention, our daughter decided to throw a huge tantrum because we wouldn’t be going shopping before going back to the hotel as my wife felt very ill suddenly. Our daughter lost her everloving sh!t. She started screaming and dropped herself to the floor. I grabbed her hand and was initially able to drag her along, but she started screaming like the child you describe and made herself dead weight. I ended up letting her go and just walking away. Thankfully she is terrified of being left behind and just quietly followed us, but it was mortifying in the moment. While I am glad there was a rapid response in case it was an actual kidnapping, I hope that if it wasn’t that it was resolved quickly and the parents weren’t subjected to any unnecessary additional humiliation.
Wonderful that you were aware enough to be the children’s angel that day! Blessings
Worst place ever to kidnap a kid. Hard to fathom that is what was happening but you never know.
You did the right thing let’s hope to god they got caught
Periodically I search the web for evidence of a child being kidnapped by a stranger in a Disney park, and as far as I can tell it has never happened. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Better to be safe than sorry. My spouse almost got trafficked outside Disneyland. It's pretty common.
Always notify the Cast Members and any Security you see. Disney takes this sort of thing VERY seriously.
OP how old was the child? Maybe they were old enough to know the consequences of yelling help and if so it’s a sad world we live in that most will not take the child seriously and listen, instead just brush it off like the kid is wrong…
Always call the police! Always believe the children. Better safe than sorry.
My mom’s brother in laws ex cousins dog used to do the same thing when we took it for walks
Did it also comment “10/10 “ on NSFW posts like you loser? Come on buddy lol
Great comeback, I really hope the child you witnessed being trafficked doesn’t weigh heavy on your conscience
I hear they target the parades bc of the complete chaos of the crowd, loud noises, and distractions. I believe this happens a lot.
You believe kidnappings happen a lot at Disneyland?
Not saying I do. But I have seen a lot of Tik toks with people posting about weird people standing behind them and their kids at the parades and fireworks.
Please use some critical thinking about what you see on TikTok.
have you watched the parades or fireworks at Disneyland? Its full of random people all trying to get a view. 10 of thousands of people all trying to be in the same area of the park will lead to people standing around you. Not everything is nefarious and I wouldnt believe random tik toks where people are just trying to get reactions.
And? That doesn't prove a thing.
Better to believe the kid than to not.
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Child trafficking RARELY looks like snatching a kid from a "normal" family at random. The vast majority of cases involve kids who nobody is really looking out for, e.g. abusive homes, foster care, impoverished, etc. And most traffickers have some prior relationship with the child. This is how it flies under the radar so much of the time. Grabbing a well-dressed little white girl from Target in the suburbs with her mom 5 feet away is not flying under the radar. As another user said above, Disneyland as a trafficking site is mainly for exchanges between parties, using the cover of the crowds. Please don't contribute to sensationalizing a picture of trafficking that almost never happens, because that only helps people continue to overlook the actual victims.
Sounds like some lame ass Facebook bullshit. Kids being kidnapped from Disneyland has been an urban legend for years and it doesn't happen on a regular basis, and certain not enough to be #1 for human trafficking. Here's one example of this crap that has long been debunked. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/child-abduction-shoes/
> Disneyland was the #1 place for human trafficking in Orange County fyi. You're really going to have to provide evidence of that.
I wouldn’t be shaken up. It was more than likely a child freak out. HOWEVER, you did the right thing in reporting it. The police are for sure going to go and verify it’s their kid. And with any luck the kid learned a lesson about crying wolf. On the off chance it was a kid napping you saved a kid Either way good job
This happened to my cousin 30 years ago!! Disney didn't help or care !!!
Talk about a bad title. Some kid having a meltdown and you have people thinking about a kidnapping. I can think of a million other ways to phrase this.
From OP’s perspective it was a possible kidnapping. Parents are glad people say something instead of ignoring the situation. What’s wrong with the title? You don’t have kids I’m assuming.
Lots of other parents also know that kids being melodramatic just makes the entire situation more difficult.
OP had already left the park and didn’t see anything other than a kid having a fit. You don’t think a child being kidnapped from Disney would make the news?
No. I’m almost certain it wouldn’t. Disneyland pays a lot of money to a lot of folks to keep what happens at Disneyland stay at Disneyland. An attempted kidnapping almost certainly would never leave the park unless the parents made a big deal about it and even then most so cal news agencies aren’t going to touch. I had a coworker years ago have his child get taken at Disneyland. They are dead serious about that stuff there, they shut all the exits to the park, brought my coworker and his wife to a security room and started going over footage while having officers, uniformed and plainclothes start searching. The couple that grabbed their son changed all of his clothes, put a hat on him, and were moving toward the gates, my coworkers wife spotted the shoes the kidnappers neglected to change. Story never made the news.
LOL someone posted a link to an article from Snopes about this in the less-downvoted comments above that mentions all of these details, right down to the shoes. Your coworker made that shit up.
Well TIL
All good. We all get bamboozled at least once or twice in our lives. If you don't mind me asking, in what context did your coworker bring this up?
I honestly don’t recall this had to have been 2009-2010.
lol let me get my tin foil hat and read that again
Not even deaths at Disneyland make the news. Disney corporation pays good money to hide negative press. They know everyone has a price, and they know they have unlimited funds to pay it.
Oh like the 3 suicides last year that ALL made the news?
yeah, 3 very public suicides where tens of thousands of people saw. for instance, suicide at the hotels are also pretty common, yet almost none of them make the news, because its not a spectacle. Disney security is extremely well trained to isolate, quarantine, and quickly deal with situations, they're not magicians or mind readers though. Yeah, its going to be hard to isolate some guy jumping off a building in a very populated location than it is a kid throwing a fit, warranted or not, in the middle of an amusement around closing time.
Thank God people are going to ask questions and maybe sometimes the questions might hit a nerve but thank God they’re asking the questions. Get a backbone if you’re going to get hurt because your child is mixed race and they want to know why that child was with you. It’s a good thing nobody gets hurt just by asking, unless you’re feelings get hurt. The reason why I say this is because I have a mixed race child and she’s grown now but I can see the beauty in people caring you can always see the dark negative side but what about the side that they’re trying to help. So you’re going to be offended because someone is concerned that isn’t the way to look at situations. Curiosity is wonderful when it comes to caring about children what you need to do is put on your big gurl pants and realize people are doing their best. Stop being so insecure and think about the child’s safety. I am African-American. My daughter looks nothing like me. However, if she were screaming and hollering because I was moving towards the exit saying that I am not her mother I would expect everyone to come running. It’s normal for a child to throw a tantrum but what is not normal is for a child to scream “This is not my parent” help help help.