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On 4 June 2017, Facebook user Tianna Stipp shared a post cautioning others about an incident she purportedly experienced at the Coon Rapids Walmart in Minnesota: Stipp's post was one of countless similar warnings in which a shopper, typically female, believes that she narrowly escaped the grasp of human traffickers in the course of an interaction with fellow shoppers in a retail environment. Although the questions were perhaps bothersome and unwanted, nothing in particular set off alarm bells on first glance. According to Stipp, the man she encountered became increasingly engaged as she attempted to extricate herself from the conversation. Stipp speculated that her discomfort caused her child to become visibly fussy — at which point the man reportedly asked her if he could hold and comfort the boy: Stipp added that she summoned a Walmart greeter, and then fled the store. On advice she later received from family members, Stipp said she called the police to report the encounter: Although the story's subtext was somewhat dependent on the interpretation of the reader, it sounded most of all as though an overbearing shopper made a fellow customer feel uncomfortable. Stipp made it clear that she felt differently: Stipp claimed that the police told her that she did it right and did everything she could, hinting that authorities were in agreement with Stipp's interpretation of events as a ruse to abduct children. Many of the comments on Stipp's thread came from readers who were also convinced the incident was related to trafficking (although they disagreed on whether the mother or child was the intended victim), recounted instances in which the same thing happened to them, encouraged Stipp to carry a gun or conceal her identity, and repeatedly claimed that similar interactions are becoming exceedingly common. One of the recurring themes amid hundreds of comments was absolute, unshakeable conviction that Stipp narrowly avoided being targeted, and that abductions of that nature were on a measurable upswing: Although the report notes that a Walmart associate suggested Stipp was possibly followed out to her car, the department did not appear to believe the incident was related to human trafficking. The department did look for the individual, but noted that he might very well have been going about his business unaware that Stipp was so unsettled by the encounter: As Stipp and hundreds of commenters demonstrated, the belief that Walmarts, Targets, Krogers, and IKEAs are teeming with accented men swarming with the intent to whisk women and children away is as pervasive as it is old. Dozens of nearly identical Facebook posts recount similarly vague (but shared as harrowing) accounts of purported attempted abductions in Target, Walmart, mall parking lots, or other family-friendly retail outlets. Rumors of this sort became fashionable on Facebook in or around May 2015, when a woman shared a story, later debunked, about an Oklahoma Hobby Lobby store encounter. The following month, Twitter was overrun with rumors of a sex slavery ring targeting college kids at summer job interviews; later that same month a long-circulating urban legend about a theme park abduction appeared and made the rounds again. Subsequent stories included a frightening (but false) claim about purported teenaged abductors (armed with heroin-filled syringes to drug putative victims) at a Denton, Texas, Dillards, a story from a woman convinced she was a near-victim of human traffickers with gift bags in the parking lot of a Hickory, North Carolina, Walmart store, and a constellation of rumors claiming Target stores in Tampa, Longview (Texas), and Houston were populated by a legion of sex trafficking scouts. Not long after a similar claim on Facebook went viral, Free Range Kids author and parenting advocate Lenore Skenazy wrote about the skyrocketing popularity of social media abduction horror stories: Skenazy notes that the tales themselves fueled the belief that trafficking is happening everywhere, but that is completely incongruent with known patterns of abduction or trafficking: We contacted Stipp via Facebook to ask about the Coon Rapids Walmart incident, but have not yet received a response.
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