How to co-mingle unrelated facts to support a premise.

11-17-2010 Florida:

The following story appeared on CBS News in Florida, you will note that the reporter consulted with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for facts; but do those facts support the premise, sex offenders target middle school children? First the relevant part of the story:

New Stranger Danger: Sex offenders target middle school-aged children

JUPITER, Fla.-- It's something many kids have to do, walk to and from school. But it's a passage of childhood filled with peril.

"It's very real, your child's life is in danger," says a man who just wants to be identified as Frank. He's a convicted sexual offender arrested and convicted for exposing himself to two middle-school aged girls in Boca Raton.

From experience, he knows children are in "More danger when they reach puberty, the predators know that."

"Most parents would assume that these sex offenders are actually going after younger kids, playground age if you will, but research just out shows they are actually targeting older kids.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says a startling amount of attempted abductions, 43%, now involve kids between the ages of 10 and 14. 38% of attempted abductions take place to and from school. And about the same number of cases,37%, occur between the hours of 2pm and 7pm.

The results were released in August after the between 2005 and 2010.

Armed with this new research, CBS 12 wanted to know if older school children would fall for the same old tricks. .... .... ... ..Source.. JUAN CARLOS FANJUL / CBS12.com

Begin: Notice that a convicted sex offender reveals he did commit the crime he was convicted of. What does that have to do with attempted abductions of children on their way to and from school (The premise of the article). For all we know he did that in the confines of his home, why is this fact missing?

Next, the NCMEC study about "attempted abductions," yes, the study did result in some facts, but nothing which points to any sex offender or sex offense occurring; but, thats what they want the reader to believe.

Now, if we jump back into the NCMEC website, where their Press Release speaks about the "attempted abductions," here is what it says:

Parents also need to understand that most of those who abduct children are not “strangers”. The phrase “stranger danger” is pervasive in our culture. However, teaching children to only be afraid of strangers is the wrong message. Children don’t get it. Children view a “stranger” as someone who is “ugly” or “mean”. If someone spends time talking to a child or is even just around a child they think they “know” the person and don’t view them as a stranger. Research shows that of the 58,000 non-family abductions each year 63% involved a friend, long-term acquaintance, neighbor, caretaker, baby sitter or person of authority and only 37% involved a stranger. The number of pure strangers is not insignificant but it remains far smaller than other offenders who have easy and legitimate access to children.

OK, the study talks about actual abductions, not attempted, and still not one mention of a sex offender being involved in any of them. Taking their comment the title of the story should have been "The majority of child abductions are by friends or acquaintances of the child."

The remainder of the original story shows how they setup -with parental approval- scenarios of kids walking to school and a actor trying to pick them up. i.e., attempted abduction. Guess what, while one of the kids did talk to the actor for a second, all of them simply walked away to the safety of their homes. Even that did not support the premise of the article.

So, after everything they said, and tried, what did they prove? Zip, Zero, Zilch, Nada which leaves us wondering what was the point of the article?

All I can think of is, to put forth a premise that there is no support for. Ahhh, it does prove this, sex offenders are highly unlikely to be involved in such a crime.

Isn't it amazing how facts co-mingled creatively can permeate the public mind into thinking wrong doing on the part of sex offenders?