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There's an old saying that's been bouncing around my head since I heard about the Alabama kidnapping case that's entangled promising young basketball star Devonta Pollard in its web. Being a mom, the saying goes, is like having your heart walking around outside of your body. When 6-year-old Jashayla Hopson was kidnapped earlier this spring, cops say the real target wasn't the kindergartner at all. The real target was Hopson's mom! You see where that saying fits, don't you?
According to police, Jesse Mae Pollard, mother of University of Alabama sophomore basketball player Devonta, had a beef with little Jashayla's mother. So she allegedly picked the girl up from kindergarten and took off with her, texting the girl's mom with a threatening message, before dropping the child off on a random street in Scooba, Mississippi. Fortunately the little girl knocked on the door of a Good Samaritan. She's doing OK.
Jesse Mae, Devonta, and five other people, on the other hand, have been indicted on various charges for the kidnapping. They all face prison time, including the young basketball player. He could face 20 years behind bars.
For what?
So his mom could get back at someone?
At the risk of making common sense, wouldn't it have been easier to just have it out with Jashayla's mom? Leave the poor child out of the grown-up business?
I can only imagine that the child was targeted because it would be the most impactful on the mother. Think about it: what's the easiest way to hurt you? Hurt your child. Your heart will break into a million pieces.
Being a parent makes you vulnerable in a way nothing else does. It makes you an easy target.
Fortunately, most people are sane enough, and humane enough that they know kids are off limits.
Unfortunately, that doesn't apply to everyone. There are people like Jesse Mae Pollard and her son who come along, and well ... what they're accused of is dark and twisted and shameful for a woman who is a mother herself.
Here's hoping they get what they deserve as this works its way through the courts. Little Jashayla deserves that much.
Has someone ever hurt your child to get to you? What did you do?
Image via Amber Alert
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