16 Siders Kids: Why Prevention Never Wins Until It's Too Late

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:08)
One more section I want to get here to. The Sider family was only found because of that misdemeanor warrant. These are the ones who got caught. These are the families who... There's families out there who haven't been caught. They're everywhere, everywhere you want to be, if you will. There's good Samaritan laws out there that protect you if you choose to act. Nothing is required. Nothing requires you to. I mean, should staying silent about a child in danger carry a consequence? Or is that a line that we can cross? I mean, it seems like... Again, we were talking about this earlier. I feel like I see this all the time, just out in stores, out in society.
It's overwhelming. I mean, is that part of our problem here, when we're focusing on what has to change, is educating society or trying to revamp society in some sort of way that has become so numb to this, so numb to horrible parenting, so numb to just, they're everywhere.
But they have to feel empowered, they have to feel enabled if they're going to say something, because what's the point of making that phone call? What's the point of writing that email? What's the point of pointing it out to the security guard at the store or whatever? If absolutely nothing happens, nobody's going to say anything, and I think that's where we're at. That's why nobody is doing anything half the time.

**Robin Drake** (1:45)
Yeah, there's a lot of facts that I think play into that, Tony. One is recognizing it because we second-guess ourselves. I mean, I do this all the time with myself, even with the show. You second-guess yourself and the things you say and the perceptions you're getting, the feedback you get, and so you second-guess yourself because one of the great tools we have as a species and the great hindrances is that disease of comparison.
We're our own worst critics, we're our own worst judges, and so we're thinking we must be wrong because they all must be right. That's part of it that comes into play on this one. We also fall into the trap of fear. Fear is the greatest motivator of us as a species, there is, and if you fear the action, you're not going to take the action. And so being able to, as a society, as messaging put out there to have people not fear taking an action is also important part of this. So and then who do you go to with it? Because just like the scenario you just gave, the security guard, a manager of a store, a bank, a hospital, what happens is, in situations like this most likely, is say you and I, grant if we're together, we'd have more group think going, so we probably would take an action, but say I walk into a hospital and I see something, I see a wobble. All right, so I see a wobble, I see some interesting folks waiting in a delivery, waiting room, I see disheveled kids, the smell is overwhelming, and I might have a small gauge to, hey, given birth, and they say yes, and so my spider senses are tingling. I got a deviation of norm. The first thing I'm going to start doing is I'm going to start looking for someone to talk to, report to. Hospital might be a little different because I can talk to a nurse, and a nurse said, don't worry, I got it taken care of, because they're ready to put a bandaid on, but say I'm somewhere else. Like you said, like a security guard, I'm walking in the department store or something. And now you're assessing the information that you have, the importance of that information. Now you're assessing on first impressions, who I'm going to give it to.
And when you're dealing with an area in a society, in a culture, in these areas, is who you're going to report it to any better than who you're reporting about. So that's also, so in other words, who do you report it to? And there's no safe zone in order to walk to, and I call it the safe tube, and why I use that expression, is inside the FBI.
When I was recruiting, not just confident human sources, but when you're trying to recruit the big ones, you know, the spy or an intelligence officer for a foreign country, you're trying to put yourself in a position where they can find you and feel safe and reaching out to you, because it's not enough that I can solve all the problems in our lives. They have to feel safe, and how to contact me, how to get to me, and that I'm the right person. And so that's part of this problem also. So say you see something as abhorrent as this, who do I feel safe and share in that with? And who do I feel safe and share in that with? That there's not gonna be negative blowback on me for doing it. So that's the other part. It's so many different facets of this.