Would You Allow Your Children To Be Micro-chiped To Keep 'Em Safe?   Author: 61384  Category:(Debate) Created:(8/12/2002 10:31:00 PM) This post has been Viewed (1298 times) Parents Fearful After Kidnappings By CHRISTINA ALMEIDA .c The Associated Press LANCASTER, Calif. (AP) - Izabella Sahakian had her 4-year-old daughter fingerprinted by police this week, just in case. She also has tried to scare her two girls for their own good. ``I tell them that if they are alone, they'll take you and kill you,'' said Sahakian, a receptionist in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale who also is the mother of an 8-year-old. A flurry of abductions of girls in Southern California and elsewhere around the country this year has filled parents with fear and prompted them to take precautions. They are using cell phones and baby monitors to keep track of their children. They are reminding them not to talk to strangers. They are refusing to let them play outside. And they are making older children check in when out with friends. ``Now when 7 o'clock comes, I panic,'' Sahakian said. ``Now they can't even play outside without me.'' The latest case involved the frantic search last week for two teenage girls who had been kidnapped at gunpoint from a teen hangout near Lancaster, about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. The drama ended with their rapist shot to death and the girls rescued. Parents in the high desert community were shaken in the days after the abduction drama played out. ``It made me afraid and concerned that something like that could happen here,'' said Lori Howard, 40, a fire dispatcher and mother of five. ``We tell our kids, `Don't let your heart melt, and fight like a tiger.' Because obviously, if you get in that car, they're not taking you to get ice cream.'' In Utah, where 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart disappeared from her bedroom June 5 and has yet to be found, parents are haunted by the possibility that a kidnapper could enter their homes. Maureen Collins, a Salt Lake City mother of three, said she felt nervous after dropping her oldest daughter, who is 12, off at a friend's house for a sleepover. ``I came home and had to talk to my husband about it. I said, `I hope they lock their doors or have an alarm,''' she said. San Diego mother Patti Berenschot was so troubled after 7-year-old Danielle van Dam vanished from her second-story bedroom in a San Diego suburb in February that she set up baby monitors to listen in on her three children throughout the night. Danielle was found slain, and a neighbor is now on trial. ``I'm still real paranoid, and I'm still having trouble sleeping,'' said Berenschot, who is no longer letting her children, ages 2, 7 and 15, play outside by themselves. Law enforcement officials say abductions by a stranger are actually on the decline. In fiscal year 1999, the FBI reported 134 such kidnappings nationally. There were 106 the following year and 93 in 2001. There are about 50 to date for 2002. Still, the recent cases have shaken parents because most of the victims were snatched from inside their homes or just outside, said FBI agent Randy Aden, who supervises a crimes-against-children task force in Los Angeles. ``The children were doing things in their homes, in their neighborhoods - all things people take for granted,'' he said. Parents, he said, need to teach smaller children to be suspicious of any adult who asks for their help because adults shouldn't need it. In the case of Samantha Runnion, the 5-year-old girl who was abducted outside her apartment in Stanton and was later found slain, the kidnapper asked for her help in finding his puppy. He then dragged her off kicking and screaming. In suburban St. Louis, where 6-year-old Cassandra Williamson was taken from her kitchen in the early morning hours of July 26 and killed, Heather Hoffman said she has become more protective of her 3-year-old daughter, Maggie. ``We talked to her about strangers and what to do,'' she said. ``She's never without one of us around.'' Peggy Haymond, a mother of two boys, ages 13 and 15, in the Orange County city of Irvine, not far from where Samantha was kidnapped, has re-emphasized safety rules. ``They say, `Mom, it won't happen to me.' I told them there are no guarantees in life,'' she said. Haymond recently bought her oldest son a cell phone. ``It was the fear of not being able to get in touch with them,'' she said. ``It's strictly a hot line to Mom and Dad.'' In Lancaster, the father of 17-year-old Jacqueline Marris, one of the teens abducted last week, said he hopes parents educate their children about safety. ``You say to yourself, `This'll never happen to me,''' Herb Marris said. ``But it did.'' On the Net: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: http://www.missingkids.org FBI: http://www.fbi.gov 08/09/02 14:40 EDT Debate:Now, with stories like these, will you allow your kids to be implanted? Or are you afraid to give the government that much authority? You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or interesting stories for the world to read and respond to Click here Scroll all the way down to read replies. Show all stories by   Author: 61384 ( Click here ) Spring is coming