Let's Not Meet~ Reddit Horror Stories

A Cop When You Actually Need One

So this happened earlier in this year, as a little background I'm a 30 year old male, married (29 at the time) with a young daughter. I live in a rural northern California town. Pretty much right in the epicenter of the gold rush, and I dont know if it's all the ways the land was taken or the ways people killed for wealth back then but its always seemed to have a higher share of strange recluses and sovereign citizen types. That being said, this is not a haunting story, or strange people of the woods, but it was by far the most frightening encounter ive experienced as a father.

Some time ago i ended up with an extra day off and my wife and I decided to go for a drive and check out a semi local gun show. From time to time I will get tables at them and have friends who do them regularly so we went to visit as i am always looking for obscure parts and pieces for old military weapons, and had some family that lived in the area of this show too.

We had a hell of a winter last year so unsuprisingly it was a cold gloomy day. We drove about an hour and knew the promoters so walked right in. As i was passing tables in search of the right stuff. I was carrying my daughter with me, she was very small and ridiculously cute, so everyone wanted to look and ask about her. Which is normal from what I've ovserved for parents. At times you even draw a small crowd usually of sweet LOL's (Old meaning: "little old ladies") and some grandpa types.

As a side point i had one grumpy lady tell me she was wayy to young....i looked at her confused, and said she's like 3 months old she'll never remember. Back on topic, there was one man who seemed a bit more excited than most men his age but he said that he had worked as an emt and in a NICU for years so seemed reasonable that he was so happy to see healthy babies. As the afternoon went on he passed me a few more times, moving against the crowd (first sign) and commented on how beautiful she was. As babies often do at that age my wife soon needed to breastfeed our daughter. We went out to the car and had blinders in the backseat so she could have privacy and keep the baby from distractions. I turned on the heater locked the doors and went back in to help a buddy sell during a busier point.

About 10 to 15 minutes later my phone starts ringing with my frantic wife on the other end. About 3 minutes before i had noticed that law enforcement had gotten up and walked outside of the show. It took a minute to calm her down but apparently the guy had follwed us outside and been watching closely. My wife got the sudden feeling that makes your hair stand up whilst feeding in the car, that was when she saw a shadow standing outside her door blocking it from opening holding a small metal tube (maglite). At that same moment a sherrif pulled up who had also seen us go to the car. The officer asked what was going on and the man tried to say he was talking to my wife who rolled the window down slightly and said she was not and didnt want to either.

The officer asked him his name and when he turned around to run the name he tried to scurry away. Name was a fake (hence why the other officers got up). Detained he gave his real name and within 1 minute of calling it in the man was turned around and arrested. Turned out he had felony warrants for kidnappings. The man was waiting for the nearby cars to leave, he was about to try and take my wife and infant daughter. Had that cop not been right there who knows how it have unfolded.

Luckily there was a cop when we needed one.