Media Hysteria Watch: Local News Show Freaks Out Over Footage of a Car Briefly Stopping

The abduction attempt that wasn't.

Under the headline ATTEMPTED KIDNAPPING CAUGHT ON TAPE, an Oregon Fox affiliate gives us this account of a girl who noticed a car was slowing down behind her as she biked, "locked eyes" with the driver, decided he was about to try to kidnap her, and then rapidly rode up her driveway to get away. This triggered her home's motion-activated cameras, so we have not-quite-dramatic footage of a car stopping at the end of her driveway for a moment and then moving on. And that, apparently, was enough to justify a local news report:

"It's all speculation, of course," the girl's mom notes to the reporter at one point. Then she plows ahead with her ideas about the terrible things the driver might have been thinking as he briefly paused his car.

It turns out that the ATTEMPTED KIDNAPPING was, in fact, a man trying to find a boat shop. Lenore Skenazy has posted the sheriff's report on the incident:

The vehicle and driver of the suspicious vehicle reported to the Yamhill County Sheriff's Office on Monday, March 31st has been located and is of no further interest. The Sheriff's Office would like to thank everyone for their concern and assistance in locating the suspicious vehicle.

Family members located the vehicle at a McMinnville business on Saturday afternoon, April 5th. The driver and owner of the vehicle was cooperative with Sheriff's Deputies, and stated he had driven to the Sheridan area to look for and purchase boat parts and became lost while looking for the business. Sheriff's Deputies were able to confirm the driver and his dog had been to the area on the day of the reported incident looking for the boat shop, and ultimately made a purchase there.

There's no word on whether this purchase was caught ON TAPE.

Bonus statistics: In 1999, according to the most recent Justice Department report on the subject that I'm aware of, 797,500 children were reported missing. But the number of "stereotypical" kidnappings—defined in the report as crimes where a stranger or slight acquaintance "detains the child overnight, transports the child at least 50 miles, holds the child for ransom, abducts the child with intent to keep the child permanently, or kills the child"—was just 115.