February 15, 2013

"Officials said a woman in a Muslim veil had taken the girl out of class..."

"... while posing as her mother, who wears the chador and niqab."
Philadelphia police have arrested the alleged kidnapper of a five-year-old girl whose report of a talking bird helped lead them to the suspect....

Police say the victim was brought to a nearby home where a man was waiting.... The girl was found 18 hours later at a nearby park, shivering and wearing only a t-shirt. She told her rescuer: "I've been stolen."
In this story, we see 2 distinctive risks. The real mother, by wearing a veil, created an opportunity for a villain to impersonate her. The villain, by keeping a talking bird, created an opportunity for a tiny child to track her down.

41 comments:

Nomennovum said...

There you go: Eschew the chador and exotic pets.

And Philadelphia, at all costs.

Anonymous said...

what? A black veil head to toe is not enough to identify a muslim woman? Why, that's racist!

Ironclad said...

This type of crime was all too common in Saudi Arabia, where men would take their "sister" to the bank and clean out an account by posing to be someone else. It also worked the opposite way by having men dress up in Black Abbyah and Niqab and then go into women's only areas in malls or other areas.

And of course many brave Muslim warriors hid in women's garb in Afghanistan to escape capture.

And one wonders why there is cause for laws to prohibit face coverings more and more in Europe?

SteveR said...

When wearing viels is outlawed, only outlaws will wear veils

edutcher said...

Will they expand stop and frisk for this?

Ironclad said...

And one wonders why there is cause for laws to prohibit face coverings more and more in Europe?

Waiting for the She-Wolf of the SS to defend the First Amendment rights of Moslem women in 5, 4, 3...

Ironclad said...

The only religious obligation of a Muslim woman is to dress modestly and cover her hair. Faces do not have to be covered - that is Salafi ideology that holds women to be " too tempting" to be seen in public.

(And of course, the most important innovation in recent times is the "breathable" nail polish that allows a woman to keep her nails shiny and still "reach" all parts of her body with water in a purification bath)

First Amendment rights, snort.

Anonymous said...

Edutcher, it's uncanny how you are so often dead wrong when you try to predict how I will react to something.

Women who are picking up their children should be made to show their face, women who get a drivers license picture taken, should be made to take show their face. Anyplace an ID needs to be made, the woman needs to understand she will need to comply with the laws of the land.

edutcher said...

She's so easy.

Relax, O She-Wolf.

As I asked before, where did you find the nice tint of your heroine?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I'm puzzled as to why I haven't heard of this obvious, yet devious scheme before.

Either, I'm out of the loop (which is usually the case) or we have a brilliant criminal mastermind here.

X said...

Inga said...Anyplace an ID needs to be made, the woman needs to understand she will need to comply with the laws of the land.

except the voting booth of course.

Anonymous said...

I've known a lot of people who wear the niqab. It has an interesting effect when you talk to that person. For one, it makes you focus a lot on what features you can distinguish, like the voice of the person, since you can't go by looks. Second, it forced you to look them in the eye because you can't look at their mouth or nose or mouth while they are talking. In that sense, the teacher still should have been able to recognize the woman, and the little girl definitely would still have known her own mother. It's likely people ignored the mother in chador because of their own discomfort, leading them to either not be able to recognize an imposter or to not even look under the assumption that noone would wear the chador to fake it anyway. Maybe the mother would have been willing to show her face and maybe she would have if asked, but it seems clear that no one at the school was asking or they would already have suspected something.

Do I get to be called a she-wolf now too? The wolf was always my favorite animal.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

...except the voting booth of course.

How are dead people going to vote if they have to produce an ID?

The dead have rights too you know.

Chip Ahoy said...

What did the bird say that was so incriminating?

Under prolonged questioning in which seed was withheld, the bird divulged the entire plan.

SteveR said...

Do I get to be called a she-wolf now too?

Its a long hard path to earn that distinction but you might want to skip the SS qualification.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Partridge, if you are correct in your theory about how unrecognizable the mother herself would be, because the school staff was uncomfortable with her dress and appearance, I think it's far more likely that any avoidance on the staff's part was out of politeness and not wanting to make her feel stared at or conspicuous.

Anyway, many parents never show their faces* at school, and consequently the teacher wouldn't know them from Adam if they did. It's also likely that the only person who saw this creature that day was the attendance secretary. In my experience, when picking up a child you check in with the front desk and the secretary calls the teacher to have her send the child to the office. So the teacher probably never saw this woman, and the secretary certainly doesn't have parents' faces memorized. I imagine that the secretary didn't want to offend the "mother" by asking to see her face, and didn't ask to compare the ID with her bare face, and that is what is being referred to by "school policies were not followed."


*see what I did there?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibits the withholding of seeds from birds under questioning.

Its a violation of the laws of airfare.

Anonymous said...

Partridge, you only get called "She Wolf of the SS" if you were born in Austria.

tim maguire said...

The veil is a McGuffin.

Did it matter? Did the school know what the mother looked like? We're they really fooled by the head covering? How about asking for some proof of identity before handing over a child?

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

From the link:

Christina Regusters, 19, who is also charged with rape and other offences, worked at an after-school care programme attended by the victim.

She's charged with having raped a five-year-old girl? Good luck in chokey, lady. It's not just in men's prisons that abusers of small children have a difficult time of it.

I don't know about the talking bird. Maybe the police just went door-to-door near where she was found and asked if anyone knew if their neighbors happened to have a talking bird. Or canvassed the local pet stores for regular buyers of birdseed.

edutcher said...

Inga said...

Partridge, you only get called "She Wolf of the SS" if you were born in Austria.

No, you get called She-Wolf of the SS if you hypocritically go all gung-ho supporting Barry's desire to put women in combat after whining for years that we should give up the War on Terror and go home like the Messiah says.

PS You never did say where yo found that tinted version of Mata Hari.

(ask a civil question and you get no answer; zing the She-Wolf a good one and you get the victim routine...)

Anonymous said...

There's a lot of freedom inside those niqabs and walled compounds, ladies.

virgil xenophon said...

@Michelle Dulak Thomson/

Maybe the bird dropped the dime on him and called the police?

Anonymous said...

Don't question why Inga constantly imposes this political ideology upon herself and seemingly everyone else by extension.

When she's not the victim of societies' injustices, she's a righteous freedom warrior.

The personal is political after all.

Anonymous said...

Edutcher, I will never divulge my sources. What kind of a spy would I be?

Anonymous said...
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Mark said...

How about asking for some proof of identity before handing over a child?

And how hard is it to get a fake ID? If the veil isn't lifted, the picture on the ID wouldn't even have to match the perps face, and of course shouldn't.

Alex said...

I can't take full credit for the She-Wolf thing, there was a porn film by the name "Ilsa She Wolf of the SS" in the 1970s.

Anonymous said...

Give credit where credit's due, it was Baron Zemo that started it, not Alex. And being a Baron, he would know;)

Alex said...

Inga doesn't mind the company she keeps. Infamous types.

Known Unknown said...

here was a porn film by the name "Ilsa She Wolf of the SS" in the 1970s.

I have seen Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. It's pretty soft core as far as "pron" goes.

Known Unknown said...

How about asking for some proof of identity before handing over a child?

At my kids' school, I have to go to the office and sign in, then return with my son or daughter, and sign them out.

edutcher said...

Fair enough. Nice work, I must say.

RigelDog said...

A little girl has been stolen and raped...not understanding the degree of levity exhibited in the comments.

Mark said...

Rigel has a point.

Known Unknown said...

I think people are intrigued by the talking bird (who actually didn't "talk") and are overlooking the horrible facts of the crime.

Perhaps we are in a certain shroud of denial.

Clyde said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Clyde said...

If you dress in a way that makes you unidentifiable, you can't complain when you (or yours) become a victim of mistaken identity because of it. There's a reason that people aren't allowedd to walk around wearing masks in civilized countries. If you can't see someone's face, then they could be anyone, including a kidnapper/rapist/etc.

Jim in St Louis said...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/15/christina-regusters-kidnap-rape-girl-philadelphia-school_n_2693723.html?utm_hp_ref=crime


The Huffington Post article says NOTHING about the chador and niqab disguise.

Hmmm....isn't that the key point in this story?

AllenS said...

What a terrible story. I'd like the kidnappers to be put away forever since they can't be killed.

Penny said...

From abc news in Philadelphia ...

"State Rep. Waters plans on introducing legislation in Harrisburg that would make it a crime, punishable by up to five years in jail, for anyone wearing religious garb to commit a crime, no matter what the religion."

3john2 said...

Sounds like a possible case of water-birding.