Cool Cop Calms Catastrophizing Public

"A person following you down the aisle at a big box store does not constitute an abduction attempt. It might be creepy, but it's not kidnapping. It's not human trafficking and it's not a crime. They might just be heading to the snack section just like you are."

So wrote Lt. Tim Cotton on the Bangor, Maine, Police Department's Facebook page last week, after someone posted about an "attempted abduction" at a local Christmas tree store but provided zero evidence anything had happened — or even that she had actually BEEN at the store.

Naturally the scary post went viral, but as Cotton told me in a phone conversation, "In all my years of working — 34 now — I've never had an actual attempt to abduct a child." In fact, "No one wants your damn kids."

So, on his Facebook post, Cotton wrote:

"Consequences of balony-filled posts are real, and we feel that no local business deserves to be named when playing silly games in the quagmire of social media mayhem."

While he was on the topic, Cotton used the opportunity to remind readers that "All who drive white vans are not perverts or cartel members." And that, despite persistent rumors, "Walmart has been proven to be a really bad location for human traffickers to ply their trade. It is a common place for people to get snacks, and other stuff that you didn't plan on buying until you walked in" — like magnetic LED lights. But in general, you do NOT start "inadvertently filling your van with humans to sell."

By virtue of such observations, Cotton has become something like the Mark Twain of Facebook, gently ribbing his fellow Americans while dispensing sage advice and biting truths. His posts are such a satisfying combo of soothing and snarky, Mike Rowe has been known to read them aloud, and several seasons' worth of Cotton's musings have been gathered into the books "The Detective in the Dooryard: Reflections of a Maine Cop," and "Got Warrants?" These have garnered reader reviews like: "Think a cop mixed with Erma Bombeck with the kindness of Mr. Rogers."

But being published — and starting his own blog, and garnering 300,000-plus Facebook followers — hasn't made Cotton complacent, so daily he tries to do the impossible: bring reality to bear on the internet. Thus, in the face of holiday abduction hysteria, he reminds readers that, inevitably:

" ... there will be humans who don't look exactly like you going to stores and investigating all the aisles trying to find things. They might even walk by you and your kids. They might brush against your shopping cart because you've stared far too long at the towel selection. Typically, they are not kidnappers. They are just way too far down the aisle to turn back and go around. It happens. Take a deep breath."

Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

When some commenters felt he was shaming the people who had shared the original abduction item, he wrote that he only wanted to stop the spread of misinformation.

To that end, he begged any readers who DO happen to witness that "extremely rare" crime — the abduction of a child by a stranger, in public, from their parents — "Do not go outside to your automobile and write a post on Facebook about the crime that just occurred in aisle 7," but instead "call the cops before you notify your aunt's quilting club in Des Moines; you know they are gonna share it big time."

In the meantime, he signed off with words we'd all do well to heed: "Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people's things alone, and be kind to one another. We will be here."