Brickbat: Sweet Hitchhiker
Rodney Peterson has three children and has a fourth due later this year. So when he spotted two teenage girls walking in a snow storm with "no umbrellas, no coats or hood" he says he felt he should help. He pulled his vehicle over and asked if they needed a ride. They said no, so he drove on. But the girls reported his offer, and three days later, Barrington, Illinois, police came to his house and arrested him for disorderly conduct.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
"no umbrellas, no coats or hood"
These are the 3 reasons these girls were not shot.
Every time these girls are treated like shit by guys it's deserved.
How do you do, hitchhikin' momma?
Get in the car and take a ride with me!
She says "Get your damn hands offa me!"
I say "Don't worry, ma'am; I'm a friend, you see."
We're just drivin' in my car.
And now the two of us are
Tearin' up the highway with
No registration; I
Ain't got no headlights, so I
Can't see a damn thing, and
What the hell was that now?
I hope it wasn't a human, and
Now I'm gettin' the heat
From this girl that I just picked up off the road,
And she's only fifteen years old.
She's only fifteen years old...
Well, he certainly engaged in "conduct".
Like, if you see something, say something!
Peterson definitely shouldn't have been arrested on these facts, but unless he's a time traveler or an alien, what the hell was he thinking?
That doing nice things is still worth something in this world?
I take your cynicism and understand it, but goddammit are we just supposed to let the bastards get us down?
When the bastards can throw us in jail? Hell yes we let them get us down!
The two girls knew that they could get a guy who tried to be helpful in trouble. They are sadists. They are typical from our culture.
The U.S.A. is no longer a place for nice people who do nice things. The police chief will say that his officers performed correctly. The jurry of American sheep will covict just because they are on the side of authority. We have a POLICE PROBLEM in this country that mandates hatred of the police and their apologists.
There's a stretch of private road near here in NYC where I've frequently offered rides, sometimes to girls, and in some cases given them.
BTW, the comments thread at cbslocal.com is more interesting than the original story, but spoiled by auto-refresh.
Um, that people should be kind to strangers?
More proof that insane people are running the country.
Gawd, I hate liberals and their do-gooder ways. Save the children from predatory men!
Any guesses as to what those teenagers have been taught at school?
I hate liberals too but Barrington, IL is about as conservative as you can get. Whatever liberals are in that town are limousine liberals.
And there's a ton of them since the district usually leans Democratic (despite having a Republican in right now).
I say good for him for trying to do something nice. And fuck all those people who think that it is inappropriate for a man to interact with teenage girls. I certainly understand the hesitation to do such things these days, but damnit, people should do more things like this.
I wouldn't have stopped to offer them a ride.
Several years ago, when I was a college student, I had a mother sic a police officer on me because I had the gall to be a man walking with a camera in a public park where children happen to play. I was taking a photography class and the project for that week was to take a picture using infrared film. Trees look amazing in IR. The park had the prettiest trees. I was there taking pictures of trees.
Since that day I've resolved that, unless there is a clear and immiment danger to a child I wouldn't intervene. It's not worth the potential hassle to me to try and be a nice person.
I wouldn't have picked them up either. I raised two daughters and I did not even allow them to have friends over to play unless my wife was home or one of their parents came as well. I've read of too many situations where false accusations have ruined peoples lives to allow that to possibly happen to me.
Also, I do some hobby photography as well and I'm always aware of what I'm shooting for that same reason. It's pretty sad really.
what the hell was he thinking?
That maybe he had a shot at doing them? I'm gonna have to take away your Man Secret Decoder Ring for not considering this possibility.
Apparently the girls thought he came off creepy -- but even so, non-coercively offering to give someone a ride is not an arrestable offense.
You're just perpetuating the causeless paranoia with such speculation.
What is possible doesn't matter, because it doesn't define in any way the appropriate response relative to the actual risks of the infinite possibilities.
Under the conditions presented, what he did was very likely nothing but kindness. I'm also aware that many people are developing a tendency to call police for any problem. It's pathetic, really.
And I bet he admitted to the cops that he stopped. Ignorance can get you arrested.
Peterson needs a lawyer. Wrongful arrest payday time.
He already pleaded guilty. The original story is 12 days old.
What the fuck? How did this even get to that point. How could any judge allow those charges to go forward?
Why the fuck did he plead guilty? Since when is it a crime to offer anyone a ride in a car?
"Police say adults should not offer rides to juveniles they do not know. If they feel a young person is in distress or danger, they should call police."
[POLICE]: Teenage Girls? You bet we'll come by right away and help them out! [/POLICE]
It is a crime to give people the perception that you're up to no good.
Your actual actions and intentions do not matter.
Since fuck you, that's when.
So he had to cough up $400 for his crime of being a good Samaritan.
At least he wasn't charged with attempted kidnapping.
At least he wasn't charged with attempted kidnapping.
If he hadn't taken the plea he likely would have faced two counts of attempted kidnapping.
Why the fuck did he plead guilty?
I'm guessing he just didn't want to deal with the bullshit of the farcical trial that would ensue.
I'm guessing the guilty plea came with little in the way of punishment, and going to trial came with the possibility of severe punishment.
I'm a the only one who hates the word "pleaded". I think it should be "pled". It's a one of those lawyer tricks to fuck up the language. Like "Attornies General" when it obviously should be "Attorney Generals" or just "AGs (pronounced ay-geez)".
General is an adjective in "Attorney General".
But I agree with you about "pleaded". It's like people who say "persons" when they mean "people".
I don't want to live in a country where luring underage girls into my car is illegal!
ALL CAPS LOSER! ALL CAPS!
STEVE ATTEND NIGHT SCHOOL! LEARN PROPER SYNTAX!
Funny!
When the three violated bodies were discovered people wondered why no one had stopped to help or offer assistance to those poor girls!
Exactly.
One-size-fits-all authoritarianism. No need to think about the facts. No muss, no fuss. No liberty.
He plead guilty and there does appear to be a creepiness factor
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/20.....een-girls/
No there doesn't, you fake lying sack of shit.
And, of course, I am sure it never crossed your Sean Hannityesque mind that one should not be charged regardless of whether there is a "creepiness" factor.
if there was one word I could strike from the vernacular, it would be "creepy". It pretty much gets used in the same fashion as "child molester".
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I hate the way "creepy" is used. It's like an immediate jump from "this person seems a little odd to me" to "must be a child molester". And a lot of people seem to find genuine kindness to be creepy. Which is kind of fucked.
What creepiness factor? There are only two things creepy about this case. 1. He plead guilty (was he trying to get leniency or was he just being stupid?). 2. His grooming. (But looking creepy is not, and should not be illegal)
Long hair (in recent decades especially if it's light colored hair) with thin mustache & beard is stage & movie cliche for creepy. All that's needed to complete that look is a hat -- any kind of hat larger than a yamuka or fez.
almost as creepy as a dude posting as a female John T.
+
No, the police claim there's a creepiness factor. "See, the girls had coats! That proves this guy was trying to lure the girls in so he could rape and torture them!"
I'm also pissed that those girls have been conditioned to call the cops on a guy who offered them a ride. Seriously, "some guy offered me a ride" is not sufficient reason to call the cops, unless he follows it up with "on my dick."
Those girls are conditioned to call the cops if a guy who they do not know says "Hi" to them.
Why else would a man say "Hi" to someone unless he is propositioning them for sex?
The American bitch is raised in a culture of perceived victimhood with every interaction with a man. I once had a UPS woman file a complaint against me for addressing her as "young lady" when she overlooked a parcel for pick-up.
The American bitch has created a very uptight America.
And when we don't want to marry them, they suggest it's because we are "immature".
File a complaint against you with whom?
She complained to her boss and mine.
If he was hot they would have taken the ride. Since he was ugly, they called the cops.
That is exactly what I was thinking.
If he was hot he might have gotten a blow job for his trouble.
Seriously, "some guy offered me a ride" is not sufficient reason to call the cops, unless he follows it up with "on my dick."
Or mustache. This guy had a mustache, and was offering rides. to teenage girls.
I hope those 25 hours of commmunity service are long and hard.
+1
FTA:
We're fucked. TPTB want this place to turn into Britain.
I forget which comic came up with the bit, but he lamented that children may as well be made of plutonium these days, if you're a male. In the past, if you saw a kid crying, maybe you'd see what was wrong, comfort them, try to find their parents, that sort of thing.
Now? To hell with that. Get away from me, don't even look at me. It's sad.
[Continued]
Ridiculous that he was charged, and I wonder what they held over him that he plead out to disorderly conduct? And doesn't this sound like fun?
I wonder what goes into 'supervision'; is it roughly equivalent to probation? Doubt that it's free. So, two years now before he can get off paper. Great.
I wonder what they held over him that he plead out to disorderly conduct?
My guess would be attempted kidnapping.
Threatening.
Probably some sex crime as well.
Probably threatened to take away his kids on conviction.
There's nothing a prosecutor will stoop to to get a conviction.
will won't
oops
The statists always claim that we are all in this together, that we all need to help one another out, and that the plethora laws and regulations are only there to ensure that these obligations are met.
In reality, the laws and regulations are pulling us all apart and preventing us from truly helping one another. Instead of taking action, we are supposed to just assume that "someone else" will take care of it. After all, the state is taking care of everything? Right?
When a statist talks of the "need to help one another", they mean government.
The individual statist will never offer to help another individual. That's what government is for.
The individual statist scorns charity. That's what government is for.
The Statist's Creed:
Everything for the State. Nothing outside the State. Nothing against the State.
Shorter version: the state uber alles.
It takes a village of cops.
To me, this illustrates a legitimate example of institutional racism.
If the cops find you driving your SUV around behind white teenage girls, and find out you spoke to them to offer them a ride, they'll arrest you.
If the cops find you driving your SUV around behind black teenage boys, and find out you spoke to them to demand they explain their presence in your neighborhood and demand they submit to your requirement that they stay where they are, you get to shoot them dead and the cops will say it's OK.
But Fluffy, Martin had gold in his teeth and might have smoked pot. Dude was obviously a thug who had it coming.
There may be those who say things like that, but I am not one of them.
I am one to say, however, that the Media Bias in the Zimmerman case fucking reeks, and you would have to be a stone-cold moron not to see it.
And sexism. If a woman had done the exact same thing, she would have never been charged. Young, white women are a special privileged class. Lower classes, especially, middle and lower class white males, the lowest of the low classes, are not permitted to so much as look at them or speak to them without explicit permission and supervision.
Are you implying we have an unwritten caste system in this country?
Oh I think it is written quite clearly.
Rectal!
Men can no longer talk to children.
Remember it. If you see something, first call 911 and ask dispatcher what you should do. Follow their advice.
That should be the extent of your involvment.
It is sad to imagine what the "good Samaritan" would face today.
Fuck that. All men should start talking to every child they see. This shit has to stop. You can't just roll over and accept this shit.
Go ahead. Start talking to every child you see. See how long before a nice man with a club and a gun demands to know what you are doing.
Well, that's an awfully defeatist attitude. Why even bother caring about stuff if you are so resigned to the fucked up state of things?
Try it. Go into Wal*mart and talk to every little girl you see.
I bet you won't be posting here for a while because you'll be in jail.
Try it. Prove me wrong.
sarc, when the time does come, are we going to be able to count on you?
You don't want to wait until they are loading you on the trains for the camps.
That's why everyone should do it. The problem is that men are so scared of this that one who does something like that would look like a weirdo.
I get your point. I'm just feeling righteous today.
One other way to do it that would involve less active risk would be to form an "Oath Keepers" type organization where the "oath" we're pledging to keep is "We swear that until the nation demonstrates that it is taking concrete steps to reduce the climate of paranoia that now exists, we will not assist any woman or child we see in distress in public, no matter the nature of the situation."
Because that would give the media the opportunity to talk about what monsters we were, they'd probably cover it and get the word out.
I talk to kids if I feel like it. I don't feel like it that often. The key is to make sure you are emitting a "I'm a dad and I have kids too" vibe, and not a "if you help me find my puppy I'll give you some candy in my windowless van" vibe.
The first lesson is that you never see anything.
Lesson: Never be nice to anyone, ever. The longer I'm alive, the more I hate other people. I hate to see what I'm going to be like when I'm 80.
Britain Deserves Better
Yeah, call the cops for someone who needs a ride and see what happens.
Shit, you can't always get them to come when there's an actual crime occurring!
Tell them you saw some kids smoking a joint.
Stoned kids to hassle? Cops will be there in no time.
Then they arrest you for lying to the cops. It's a no-win situation. No wonder people don't help other people, might land you in jail.
"I think they're about to have sex with each other to keep warm!"
to be fair, telling the cops that teen girls were about to go Sappho would probably get a response.
They were "sexting" officer! Yes, I'm sure!
Shit! You would get every agency in the state responding...on a slow news day maybe feds too!
It's a pity they didn't freeze to death!
Or call and tell them that they are being followed by a guy in an SUV. No need to mention that the guy in the SUV is you. Just be sure to turn off before the girls can get a license number.
Defendant said it was snowing that day and it apparently wasn't.
Defendant said the girls weren't properly dressed for the weather but it seems that security camera footage shows that they were.
Wow! What amazing proof that this guy was thinking about molestering those girls and deserves to be convicted of a crime! Guess that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing goes out the window when Teh Childrens are involved.
See, what you're doing is trying to introduce doubt about this guy's innocent intentions. But what you really should be doing is introducing proof of this guy's criminal intentions. In other words, unless there's some goddamn proof that this guy actually wanted to do anything other than give those girls a ride home, he goes free.
But he gave them the creeps.
Doesn't matter what his intentions were, he gave them the creeps.
He must be punished because he gave them the creeps.
Ew.
Seriously?
So gross.
the only thing that gives me pause is that the guy pled guilty. Even if the cops could prove he lied about snow and coats, how does anything he did amount to disorderly conduct? Any PD should be able to get a not guilty on those allegations.
I can't see any reason for him taking the plea other than he knew there was a substantial risk of a worse charge with evidence to support it.
That or he got a public pretender who likes to score points with the prosecution by always advising his clients to take a plea.
Or he got an incompetent PD, just out of law school, who didn't get royally pissed off that this even got before a judge, and file a countersuit against the cops for violating his civil rights.
I mean, the PD didn't even get his client to shave off the stache and soul patch (unless that was a pre-arrest photo).
Aren't most public defenders actual employees of the state and therefore unable to represent their criminal defendants in civil matters?
Or the prosecutor loaded up the charges. 2 counts of attempted kidnapping, and anything else the prosecutor could think of to charge him with. Easier, and safer, to take the plea.
I can't see any reason for him taking the plea other than he knew there was a substantial risk of a worse charge with evidence to support it.
In our current criminal justice system, there's always a worse charge that can be brought. Always.
And evidence to support it is, frequently, merely notional. He could have very rationally decided the expense of trial, and the non-zero chance of losing even to trumped up charges, made a plea the more prudent course.
^^^What R C said. ^^^
Ew.
Seriously?
So gross.
I see what you did there.
The ewes were not so embraceable, were they?
But he gave them the creeps.
Doesn't matter what his intentions were, he gave them the creeps.
It's the Rebecca Watson thing all over again.
Just like that recent case about the guy with the gay roommate. It doesn't matter what dude's intentions were, it was how he was perceived.
How you are perceived is grounds for criminal punishment. Your actual actions or intentions don't matter.
We're now prosecuting people for having homosexual intent. "Homosexual intent" means you're a dude who's thinking of boning another dude, or might be thinking of boning another dude, possibly, maybe. Or we think you may be thinking of boning another dude.
All that matters is what we think, and what we think is that you're thinking of boning another dude or might start thinking of boning another dude some day, so we're going to have to arrest you just to be on the safe side, pre-vert!
Defendant said it was snowing that day and it apparently wasn't.
Defendant said the girls weren't properly dressed for the weather but it seems that security camera footage shows that they were.
So, you're saying that alleged thoughtcrimes should be an offense?
What specific harm did he do to those girls?
He gave them the creeps.
Apparently that is a crime.
This is the entire issue. Giving someone the creeps, a mere micro-aggression, is illegal. Nothing else is relevent to the case.
Apparently, security footage contradicts the weather and improper attire claims that this guy was making as to the rationale for his asking to give the girls a ride.
Security footage also shows that the guy passed them, and circled back and went down an alley looking for the girls.
Also, I think the statute he was charged under basically lets them charge you for doing something that causes fear to someone else.
Originally, I thought the charges were pretty outrageous and should be fought. I still think he should have fought the charges, although once security footage proved this guy to be a liar, he became a bit less sympathetic, and I think he decided better to cop a plea than to have to explain why his story didn't add up.
It's also pretty ridiculous for cops to claim that offering to help children should be avoided and people should call the cops instead.
On the other side, it would be a very bold child molester to pick up two at once.
rather's many duplicate identities and trolls keep striking fear into my heart; can she be charged?
This is why I avoid helping someone I see on the side of the road in need, unless they're a fellow male of my age or older.
And, sadly, I wouldn't stop to help a police officer I saw about to get killed--my intervening to help might result in me getting charged.
Thanks, liberals: you've created a world where I only feel comfortable helping other "privileged" males like myself.
(And, yeah, I usually do stop to help bikers stranded on the side of the road. Usually try to make sure it's not a woman if the biker hasn't yet taken their helmet off. I've skipped a motorcyclist stranded in the rain before because I wasn't sure.)
Look, people: just trust the police. Don't question. Everything they do is for our own good.
The fact that there is no accountability? You people who are concerned about that are obviously current or future criminals.
Our plan is working. Some day, it will be illegal to be a straight male.
Then... we'll go after the gay men.
The Seinfeld series finale is already an anachronism.
I wonder how long it would take for parents to "demand change" if every time a citizen observed children (under 18) walking the cops were called?
I think we can be agreeably happy that he wasn't black.
Let's assume the absolute worst:
He was trolling for teenage girls to rape, murder, and cannibalize.
I still don't see a crime here.
Dude, he gave them the creeps!
The creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeps!
Like ew, icky and gross all at once!