Tragic Story, Could Have Been Prevented
It’s hard to write this blog post due to the tragic nature of the situation. Not sure if you have heard or read about Amber Dubois, the 14-year-old San Diego area girl who went missing on Friday, February 13th. According to news reports, she went missing during her walk to school.
The poor girl has been missing for a month now and I hope she is okay. Though the police are not labeling this as a runaway, we can still hope that her disappearance isn’t fatal. The only recent evidence is clothing found over the weekend, which was determined to not belong to Amber.
As sad and tragic as the story is, two major items need to be pointed out.
According to statements from friends, Amber was chatting online with boys before her disappearance. However, her parents told police that she didn’t chat online with people. Because of that, and ignoring the friends’ testimony, online records were not investigated for a full month.
WHY?!? She was a teenager! Of COURSE she chatted online!!
This brings up the biggest flaw in parenting today: you DO NOT KNOW what your kids are doing online – trust me!! By the sheer laws of physics, teenagers DO NOT tell their parents everything. In 2009, they especially don’t tell their parents what they are doing online.
We don’t know yet if this disappearance has a connection to people Amber met online, but that is not my gripe. I don’t care who it is, if a person goes missing, and they are between the ages of 11 and 21 – you CHECK THEIR ONLINE ACTIVITY FIRST! If they are under 18 and living in their parents’ house, there should be monitoring software on the computer so that within hours parents will have records they can hand to police in their investigations.
Again, I am very truly sad to hear about what has happened to Amber, but I can’t help but feel anger towards her parents and police for ignoring Amber’s friends.
I hope this isn’t related to online chats. I hope the spike in online activity before her disappearance (which has been confirmed) is just a coincidence. If it’s not, and this had something to do with a stranger she met online, then maybe we could have sped up the investigation with details from her Internet activity.
At the very least, this is a case of not knowing what your kids are really doing online …And that is entirely preventable.
Here is a link to a bevy of stories concerning the case.
If you are in the area, please be alert and even volunteer if you can. Let’s bring Amber home!