Michigan gas station clerk saves teen from alleged kidnapper after she whispers ‘help’

The likelihood of me getting seriously injured is lower than the likelihood of that person never being found again if they leave the store. It's a calculated risk I'm willing to make. Missing child or missing adult makes no difference, neither deserve anything bad to happen to them. Sure there's also a small chance that the person saying help is making it up or has some ulterior motive, but in that instance the supposed 'kidnapper' should have no issue waiting for the police to explain everything. So by considering all the factors and risks, personally, I would always try to intervene. It's a privileged position and I wouldn't expect everyone to do the same.

wtf would a hand signal do

I teach high school and there are a lot of girls who have everyone in their friend group on Life360.

Thanks, this sounds much less awful than snapchat

None of us use Snapchat because it's horrible otherwise

Tell me you're not a woman and don't know too many women that well because that's exactly the kind of shit we dlo

There are lots of people who explicitly do it for situations like this. It may not be exactly "just in case I get kidnapped" but a general "If Im in a situation where I cant respond" like a car accident or in the hospital. I have an app like that.

My family pushed me in oral program because I had a good chance of picking up verbal communication and I do have excellent lipreading ability.

Huh. Never heard of that before. So like a fist? Just not one for punching?

I'd think they were trolling me I've never heard of that before

Just for clarity, hand held vertically, palm facing the person you're trying to communicate with.

it’s a great idea! i never heard of it (sw usa) so i would not have known to help her. things like this should be taught more widely 

You can just go to a gun show and buy a gun with almost no paperwork and no background check. Like it is true that you cannot get one from a gun store. But it is the easiest thing in the world to go and pay a couple of hundred dollars to a guy who sells privately. Edit: actually this apparently changed in 2024, but he could have bought it before that and enforcement is apparently extremely low anyways

> The default setting during setup for both android and apple phones has had location services enabled for years and years. That shares it with Apple or Google services, not other people. I'm a millennial, but my closest friend group all has our map locations shared with each other. Really helpful at larger events to track people down, and just genuinely a little interesting to open maps and say, oh, shit, Bill is across the country this week. And my wife and I use it all the time. Instead of having to call each other just to ask, should I start dinner, you glance at maps to see if the other has started their commute. Lots of my generations kids grew up having locations shared with their parents and also share them with their friends, like my friend group does.

>Then if your logged into certain apps [....] Several social media apps prefer it on for photo location tagging. For example: Instagram will share the location of your posts with your followers via Maps unless disabled.

I don't think it's the most intuitive signal, but it's meant to be used where the kidnapper wouldn't see. For example, behind your back if he's walking you down a sidewalk. Or in another case where a girl in a car did it at a window and another driver recognized it and contacted police.

It isn’t meant to be some big secret, of anything we need the most amount of people possible to know so that victims know to use it and people know to recognize it. It’s meant to be a subtle signal that hopefully can be given without the perpetrator realizing. I know not everyone knows about it, but I’ve seen a few PSA videos online, I don’t think they would put it in PSA if it was meant to be a secret, if anything it should become a universal signal like SOS or as close to one as possible. Edit because I re read your comment and realized I missed something: Yes having a silent signal is absolutely valuable in moments where a victim may only momentarily be in a public space before being imprisoned again, if there is an immediate fear of violence, and also being able to silently alert cops, let’s say during a wellness check or on the street, increases the chance of an arrest since it won’t alert the perpetrator to the cops being aware of a potential threat. It’s honestly just another tool in the belt and I don’t see an issue with that. Anyway, here’s a few examples of times it saved someone. In the [first video](https://youtu.be/UHkICJiJV9U?si=M64LoEOWjqnDC7Kc) a woman who was living with her abuser was saved when she gave the signal to a paramedic who was checking in. In the [second video](https://youtu.be/oU3jZT3b9Uc?si=U0_pQfPo4D9JHjAP) a teenage girl was saved who was in the passenger seat of her kidnappers car after giving the signal to another car. In the [third video](https://youtu.be/wk4aFmcrPUc?si=FcTnAH7HaFaLQpX2) a woman was saved who was in a gas station with her abuser. Notice that in all of these situations most likely the victims would not be able to get away from their abuser or kidnapper in order to safely vocalize that they needed help

A hand signal is concealable though, while a verbal request sometimes cannot be. You can hide a single hand behind the lid of a laptop while on a video call or put your body between a signal and an abuser while out and about.

You're applying some really black-and-white reasoning here. How many kidnappings would need to be prevented or thwarted in order for this hand signal to be considered a "solution" for you? It sounds like you're saying that the solution as it exists is worthless because it isn't 100% effective. Me, personally, I'll take a solution that reduces kidnappings by even 1%.