The message quickly went viral. A man tried to kidnap a young girl in La Línea (Cádiz). The image of the alleged criminal spread massively in this municipality and, soon, through numerous telephone numbers of mothers and fathers from neighboring towns. “This happened in La Línea, but it is spreading to other cities.” Someone identified the man in the photo on the street and chastised him. A crowd of people surrounded him and, as several similarly released videos show, he was brutally beaten to subdue him. These images of the lynching were accompanied by another message: “Gentlemen, I am sending this because it is of vital importance. Be very careful around children.
It was necessary for the National Police to shed light on what happened. The attempted kidnapping was a hoax. But the lynching of the alleged kidnapper turned out to be true. According to this police report, last Tuesday a man was arrested in La Línea for resisting law enforcement. During his arrest, photos were taken of him and they began to spread quickly, like the arrest of a suspected pedophile.
Police said they had not received any complaints of attempted kidnapping this week and that there were no real witnesses who corroborated it. The closest thing to it is the story of a mother who claimed that the arrested man had paid her daughter an inappropriate compliment. It was enough for the photo of the detainee to spread on networks and WhatsApp groups like a criminal looking for victims. When he was released the next day, people recognized him near a school. And the lynching took place, which prevented the arrival of the National Police, whose agents arrived in time to transfer the man to La Línea Hospital, where he remains admitted to the mental health unit.
Images of the lynching encouraged another hoax. That the man had tried to extend his kidnapping plan to minors from neighboring municipalities in the province of Cádiz.
“Unjustified alarms”
The National Police of Cádiz has already carried out a specific classification of hoaxes broadcast on the Internet and by telephone. And specifically, child abduction is at the top of that list. “Sometimes, as in this case, they are fueled by real facts, but distorted and replicated via WhatsApp or networks, creating unjustified alarm,” police sources explain.
The other most popular hoaxes concern the existence of highly wanted terrorists hidden in the environment, gangs that act in certain ways to steal from houses, infected food or impossible discounts that cause queues and altercations .
To put an end to this type of information with dangerous consequences, the Press Association and the College of Journalists of Cádiz carried out a decalogue of measures which, among other things, recommended contrasting the information with the journalistic media and the institutional portals, not to share rumors or information that has not been corroborated, reject sensationalist content or content with a racist or antidemocratic aim and only promote articles prepared by journalists and published in journalistic media.
