For lack of a better term? I’m not sure what to call it. I started arguing with someone who was claiming you shouldn’t help people in public because it could get you into legal trouble. Without wanting to even get into the ethics of why you should help someone regardless, I brought up good Samaritan laws. This person brought up a guy in Illinois who was convicted as a sex offender for grabbing a girl by the arm and lecturing her for jumping in front of a car without looking both ways first. According to this person, holding someone underage, even for a moment, counts as imprisonment of a minor, and automatically gets you put on the sex offender registry for life.
Now, that seemed fishy, but plausible in an awful sort of way, so I did some digging. I found several sources that mentioned this story, and learned the alleged man’s name is Fitzroy Barnaby, the incident occurred in 2001, he was convicted in Cook County in 2003, and it’s a cautionary tale against being a good Samaritan (ugh). But I cannot find any court documents, nor can I find any original sources. Every source references a since-deleted article by the “Chicago Sun Times”, and Barnaby isn’t even listed on the Illinois sex offender registry. Was this whole story just made up? Or have records been sealed and scrubbed or something?
This comes across as if you’re on the side of those peddling this (most likely) fake story. While what you said is true, it comes across as unnecessary at best, and malicious at worst to warn others about the “risks” of helping others. Good Samaritans can face legal trouble, but that’s exceedingly rare.
Always help others if you’re able and do it within a reasonable lens, full stop.
Even if the story is mostly fake, it doesn’t absolve the fake guy of being in the wrong.
There’s a difference between someone being accused of this if they were legitimately carrying the girl to safety…and someone being accused of this because they grabbed a girl by the arm and held her there for no other reason than to yell at her for not being careful.
Even if your intentions are technically good, you still have to be aware of the consequences of your own actions. This isn’t to say, “Don’t help people”. It’s more like, “Are you sure what you’re doing is actually helpful?”
I think it might be worth re-reading this comment through the lens of the other comment where you dug up the details of the (alleged) actual story. Not too sure which came first due to the edit in the other comment.
The guy pulled his car over to grab her and lecture her after the incident happened. That’s not ok and shouldn’t be covered under good Samaritan laws. Really that could be grounds for something like assault charges in some jurisdiction. Potentially if she wasn’t a minor she could have even had a decent shot at a self-defense claim if she’d shot him when he grabbed her (this is 'murica after all) he continued to escalate a situation that was already resolved and introduced physical force into circumstances where it wasn’t warranted.
What you probably pictured (I know it’s what I had in mind) was probably more like someone grabbing a girl to keep her from walking into traffic. That would probably be covered under good Samaritan laws.
But holding onto her after that to yell at her probably wouldn’t/shouldn’t, that’s uncalled for, though there may be a little more leeway there since it would still sort of been in the heat of the moment. Odds are probably pretty good that she wouldn’t have even pressed the issue since he just potentially saved her life if that were the case.
As for it being considered a sex offense, I think that’s a case of the laws being poorly-crafted, the insane way we craft laws to “protect the children” (except when the rich and powerful are involved apparently) and the justice system being broken because that aspect of it is kind of bullshit and probably should have been thrown out on appeal. What he did was wrong and I think there should be consequences for that, but I don’t think there’s any reason to think it was wrong in a sexual way unless there are other details to the story that have been glossed over.
And the person you had the conversation with that prompted this either misunderstood the circumstances, possibly because they only got the information second hand themselves, or are trying to twist the details to suit their agenda. The first is probably more likely, but we can’t really know for sure.
I dont know anything about this story you mention. What i do know, is that people should understand the risks when they decide to take action. Denying them that knowledge is irresponsible, regardless of how rare those risks occur.
I help if im able and I am happy you do too. But the people that don’t help because they are scared of a potential risk of a lawsuit, I dont hold any ill will against them