A Cleveland suburb was rocked Friday by an Amber Alert alleging a 12-year-old boy had been kidnapped.
Police immediately began searching for the missing boy and the suspects, 19 News reported. They found them driving the mother’s stolen 2008 Saturn Vue and pursued. The men crashed the car and tried to run, but they were apprehended.
Police then discovered that the child had not been kidnapped, and the mother made up the story to get police to look for her stolen car. The Amber Alert was cancelled with a notice that the mother had lied.
Cleveland Police Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia released a statement regarding the mother’s deception.
“Preliminary information indicates that this child was never in the car and was possibly at home the whole time,” Ciaccia said in the statement. “The officers on scene are going to be making reports due to the mother making false police reports. The case will be referred to the detective bureau for follow up …”
Ciaccia, according to 19 News, said the mother had not been charged. Ohio law allows the mother to be charged with a first-degree misdemeanor charge for filing a false police report.
The outlet reported that her 12-year-old boy was safe at home with his father during the whole ordeal.
19 News sent reporter Kelly Kennedy to the mother’s home in Cleveland’s East Side. When the reporter arrived, the mother was not keen to tell her side of the story.
“’Why are you here? And then you’re all talking about a hoax and all of that s**t! Can you get the f*** off my porch? I don’t even know how y’all know where I live at or none of that,’ the mother said,” according to 19 News.
Kennedy then told the mother that “Police gave us that information.”
When the mother asked why Kennedy was at her home, the reporter said she wanted “to know if you filed a false police report.”
The mother said: “It’s not true.”
Kennedy then asked her several times if her son was in the car, as she told police. The mother just kept saying “It’s not true.”
Kennedy asked yet again: “Well, was your son in the car when it was stolen?”
The mother then closed her front door.
Women falsely claiming their children were abducted is nothing new. In September 2018, Florida mother Charisse Stinson told police her 2-year-old son had been kidnapped. The New York Post reported at the time that Stinson later admitted that she had hit the boy, causing seizures, and then left him to die in the woods.
In July 2018, another Florida mom, Tammy Steffen, told police her former business partner had tried to abduct her 12-year-old daughter. Police later determined that Steffen staged the kidnapping to get back at the former business partner. Surveillance footage showed the man was in another city at the time of the alleged abduction attempt. More surveillance footage showed Steffen purchasing supplies later “discovered” as part of the abduction. Police suspected Steffen lied to get back at the former business partner because she believed he somehow prevented her from winning an online fitness contest.