Frustrating Triggering News

 Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the news stories about the Decker family- a non custodial father who is still at large and wanted for the unaliving of his three little girls. And I know the word “unaliving” is a little annoying, but I don’t want this post to be somehow censored if I use the M word. When I did a deep dive on Josh Duggar and his crime about three years ago, I blogged about it and was censored for calling him what he is. Anyway, the person with the best deep dive on the Decker family is Stephanie Harlowe. I don’t “always” watch Stephanie Harlowe- only for cases I’m interested in already, before she makes a video about them. 

Last night, I had a dream that I was actually working as a clerk in the convenient store chain that we are working on inventory for the last couple weeks. In my dream, Travis Decker walked into the store, took a beer out of the cooler doors and opened it and started chugging it while staring me dead in the eye. I wanted to pick up my phone and call to report that I found him, but he was staring at me. I kept wondering in my dream if I looked at his eyes, would I “see evil”. Then I dared myself to look him in the eye and woke up from the dream instantly. That’s weird, because I always roll my eyes at people who say they can see evil in someone’s eyes. I don’t believe that is a thing at all. 

The biggest debate/point of contention surrounding this case is the fact that there was no Amber Alert. Someone from their local pd (or it may have been Washington state police) was interviewed and said they can’t do an amber alert just because a non-custodial parent is late bringing their kids back. Except, I feel like that happens all the time. There are always amber alerts for people being late bringing their kids back to the other parent. This cop was like, “That would desensitize people to the amber alert system” and yeah, that’s actually exactly what it does. How ironic that what seems like the one time they should have issued one, they didn’t. But it’s only frustrating if you really think an amber alert “would have” definitely saved them. Would it?  No one knows. 

In the video linked above, Stephanie Harlowe is definitely one that believes an amber alert would have definitely saved these three kids. She sits there at the end of her video and says, “No one is going to sit there and be upset at too many amber alerts”.  Actually yes some might be.  Not you and I, but some people will for sure.  Getting upset or annoyed at amber alerts is also not the same as being desensitized to it. I was desensitized when the amber alert for Audrii Cunningham went out. Immediately before she went missing, there had just been too many issued that were non custodial parents being late. One time, a bitter paternal grandmother had an amber alert issued for her grandson, and the custodial mother was live streaming herself on Facebook on hold with the police department with the “missing” child on her lap.  Grandma was later arrested for a frivolous report.  These were on my mind when Audrii’s alert went out. Would I personally have single-handedly saved Audrii if I wasn’t desensitized?  No- she never left Lake Livingston. I was 75 miles away. But it’s because of that why I understand the concept. 

I don’t think Stephanie Harlowe grasps the nuances surrounding amber alerts. She’s an armchair detective, but  at the end of the day so am I. 

What if there was one constant running live stream on some sort of social media platform that featured all active missing person cases?  Would it be too much information?  Would the average person check it?  Who knows what the answer is?  I don’t. I do know that I don’t believe amber alerts are as perfect as Stephanie believes them to be. In other words, one could have gone out and it wouldn’t have saved them. Or maybe it would have. We can’t look into alternative universes. 

It’s also extremely easy to fall into the amber alert criticism debate, because it’s way too hard to imagine losing your kids. We can’t imagine what the mother is going through. And we don’t want to, so we fall into the amber alert blame bickering. It’s easier.