Kim Albertson Stranger tries to take her son from gym day care

[Whisper]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Kim Albertson says her 4-year-old son was nearly kidnapped from the child care center of a Charlotte fitness center.
[...]
The incident happened Wednesday night around 7:30 p.m. at the Sports and Fitness Club on North Tryon Street.
The 4-year-old's father was working out and had left his son in the gym's day care center. Police say the attempted kidnapper pretended to be the workout partner of the boy's father.
"A guy came in and pointed at him and said, 'I came to pick him up.' And the girl went to get his stuff," Albertson said.

Somehow, the suspect got the child's toys. But then the 4-year-old spoke up, just as his parents had taught him.
"My son said, 'No, that's not my daddy and I don't know him.' So she (staffer) said his dad needs to come and sign him out before he can leave the gym," Albertson said.
Albertson is upset with the gym. She feels lucky that she doesn't have to look for her son.
Meanwhile, Sports and Fitness defended their staffer. Spokesperson Tonya Anderson said, "We did our job. We're happy that it was stopped."
[...]
"With all the mean stuff you see on TV, I just couldn't imagine if that had been the end of the case today," Albertson said.

http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/Stran...-91074499.html

[AngelFire]

We did our job. We're happy that it was stopped."

A big hearty Fuck You is in order. They didn't do their job, the kid spoke up. Otherwise,poor lil guy would have been sent off with God knows, what lunatic. How about asking for ID? Would that been too much to ask?

[Misskittychaos]

The gym should be so freaking happy that this mother taught her child to not trust strangers and to have a sense of stranger danger!

[Ninja0980]

umm know, preparing to hand over a kid to someone who simply states he was asked to pick him up and from the sounds of it wasn't the bio parent is NOT doing your job. Checking for ID,paging the parent of the kid over the loud speaker etc is doing your job.

[Whisper]

The gym DIDNT do their job
And if they think they did then they need to install a new identification program for matching the correct kids back up with the right parent

[AngelFire]

I love how they tried to steal the little ones thunder "We did our job"...what a joke. They did absolutely nothing. But of course now they have to go on damage control and state that they DID stop it. What would have happened if the lil guy was like most 4 year olds oblivious to everything around them? Then what?

[Whisper]

We have some stores here that you have to leave your bags at the door
And even they put more thought into giving the correct ones back to you as you leave
They match up ticket stub number they give you when you enter and hand over the bags

[Pene784]

My gym requires the same person that dropped of the child pick him/her up. Your hand is stamped and the back of the shoulder of the child (so the kids don't wash/rub it off) is stamped with the same code to help the staffer know who belongs to who. They do it Chuck e cheese style.

[Twisted]

We have some stores here that you have to leave your bags at the door
And even they put more thought into giving the correct ones back to you as you leave
They match up ticket stub number they give you when you enter and hand over the bags

Unrelated side note, but I'd never shop somewhere that treats me like a thief from the moment I enter.

[MC30]

most of the time you have to be a member of a gym. it should be fairly easy for them to figure out who this weird-o is.

[eracsurfer]

I would like to add a hearty bravo to the parents here for teaching their little one this vital safety tip!

The gym's daycare/babysitting service should be investigated and probably shut the hell down, before some other child isn't so smart or lucky to get away.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Get serious. The gym did do it's job. They did not let the kid go with the man. There is nothing that says the child would have been allowed to go if the child had NOT spoken up.

It seems logical to me to go get the toys and go to the desk to check out. If the appropriate credentials were not given, then the child does not go. It doesn't matter if the kids toys were at the desk or not.

Even leaving our kids at the care center of the local grocery store requires you show ID... despite having the child hanging on you saying "Mommy, mommy".

So unless you can prove as a fact that the kid would have been given to the stranger, there is nothing to say that they didn't do their job.

[coffee achiever]

Normally, Dakota, I agree with you. But the worker went, gathered up all the child's belongings, and had handed the kid's stuff over to the stranger before the child piped up. She didn't collect his things and leave them at the desk to check the stranger's ID. She gave them TO THE STRANGER. No questions asked. That tells me that she was getting ready to release the kid to this weirdo if the kid hadn't put the brakes on the whole thing.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Given that 99.999% of the time, there is no problem, that still seems like a normal thing to do. There is still nothing that says she wasn't going to check the dude's ID against the records they have.

Would you leave your kid in a place that didn't check IDs when you pick the kid up? I never did except at my usual daycare. Even there they had a list of who was allowed to pick up my kids. At the local grocery store and drop-in center, I always had to show ID. I would not have left my kids there if they didn't.

So you could just as easily chastize the parents for leaving their kids at a place that didn't check ID's. I'm not willing to do that either in this case because nothing has been said that they don't do that.

[coffee achiever]

I'm not saying that this is a case of policy being not to check IDs. I'm saying this is likely an isolated case of some idiot jock-hag ignoring the policy because it's 7:30, her shift's almost over, and it's time to eat her powerbar.

It doesn't seem like a normal thing to do to me. There could be money, cellphone, medications, any number of necessary or valuable personal belongings in the kids' stuff. If you wouldn't hand the kid over without checking ID first, you shouldn't hand the kid's stuff over either - jackass could sprint off with it and little Johnny could be without his inhaler. Or his snack money. Would *THAT* be the gym's fault?

Given that 99.999% of the time, there is no problem, that still seems like a normal thing to do. There is still nothing that says she wasn't going to check the dude's ID against the records they have.

Would you leave your kid in a place that didn't check IDs when you pick the kid up? I never did except at my usual daycare. Even there they had a list of who was allowed to pick up my kids. At the local grocery store and drop-in center, I always had to show ID. I would not have left my kids there if they didn't.

So you could just as easily chastize the parents for leaving their kids at a place that didn't check ID's. I'm not willing to do that either in this case.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

And a mad crazy man could burst thru the doors shooting.

If you want to make up what-if scenarios, go ahead. I just think that it's logical because the huge majority of the time, the person picking up the kid is authorized to do so. I tend to stick with logic rather than emotional.

[coffee achiever]

Ok, let's not resort to histrionics here. I AM being logical. Having worked at a daycare, someone I don't know walks up, points to a kid, and says "I'm here to pick him up" - without using the kid's name or the parents' name, or any indication that he's not a fucking weirdo not ONLY isn't going to motivate me to go round up the kid and his gear and hand the bag over to the stranger, but it's MOST DEFINITELY going to send off all kinds of internal alarms and probably result in a confrontation of some kind.

The fact that she both pulled the kid out of care and got his shit together says to me that she was fully prepared to hand over the kid. It's easier to check ID when the stranger first asks, before going through that whole process of rounding up kid and stuff. If she were going to check, she'd have done it up front. You wanna give her the benefit of the doubt, that's cool. But I think logic suggests that she doesn't deserve it.

And a mad crazy man could burst thru the doors shooting.

If you want to make up what-if scenarios, go ahead. I just think that it's logical because the huge majority of the time, the person picking up the kid is authorized to do so. I tend to stick with logic rather than emotional.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

This scenario would have played out the same if the kid had no items. As pointing for him, the media isn't naming him and that is just what the mom (who wasn't there) said the guy said. So I don't know how much credence I put in it.

The girl did say his dad needs to come and sign him out before he can leave the gym. Yes, she supposedly said it after the boy said it wasn't his dad, but nothing says she wasn't going to go through the sign out process if the child hadn't said it. Only speculation says she was or wasn't.

These parents taught their kid well. That everyone can agree on.