RonPaulFanInGA
06-27-2010, 04:40 AM
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100627/NEWS01/6270401/1002/NEWS01
DAVIS, Calif. — A weeping young woman approaches strangers, tells them a wrenching story about an abusive boyfriend and pleads for $37 for a train ticket. The routine has played out many times on the streets of this college town over the past six months, so many times that some residents have concluded that the woman is a con artist. She is known as the Crying Girl.
Frustrated by a hamstrung Police Department, citizens here have taken to the Internet to digitally tar-and-feather her.
Sunjeet Baadkar, 28, is one of the dozens who have been duped. "Unfortunately, my white-knight complex kicked in," said Baadkar, who was approached by the Crying Girl one evening in late March in the parking lot behind the bookstore where he works. In the fading light she looked like a teenager, he recalled, an Amtrak schedule clutched in her hand and makeup streaked down her face.
"It was the crying that really got to me," he said.
He gave her $37 and hugged her goodbye, imagining her purchasing a ticket and boarding a westbound train to some city where a loving mother would welcome her home and dry her eyes.
Two weeks later, he saw the same girl. Still crying.
"I'm not the vengeful type, but I was angry," Baadkar said.
Bernie Goldsmith, a former Wall Street lawyer who moved home to Davis last year, said he was approached by the Crying Girl in March with the same story, tears once again pooling in her eyes. But he was not fooled.
Goldsmith, 27, called the police but said he got no response. So he decided to post a description of the Crying Girl and the details of her scheme to Daviswiki, a local website that allows residents to post and curate geographically specific information on topics as varied as historic buildings, multicultural poetry nights and Davis trivia.
Soon, dozens of amateur sleuths had posted information about her, including a license plate number for her getaway car, a photograph of her in a red sweatshirt, meticulous details about encounters with her, links to her supposed Facebook and MySpace profiles, a flier warning of her swindle and information about how to file a police report.
"People ran away with it," Goldsmith said. "Daviswiki allowed the community to be their own detectives."
Some of the information gathered has been the type of hard evidence the police appreciate. The Crying Girl has been spotted outside the Safeway, trolling the Target parking lot, stationed on downtown corners and outside bars. Described as a round-faced, buxom woman in her early 20s, the Crying Girl is sometimes referred to simply as "The CG."
City police say the popularity of the website post prompted the department to take notice of the Crying Girl, though they say she has not committed any crimes. Officers have responded to more than a dozen reports, but, "it's not illegal to ask people for money," said Lt. Thomas Waltz of the Police Department.
Waltz likened the situation to an unruly campground bear.
"The parks department doesn't want campers to feed the bears because the bears get used to being fed and they come back looking for more," he said. "Same thing with this girl, the more people give her money, the more she'll come back."
Baadkar, meanwhile, says he has been approached by the Crying Girl three times. He downloaded the warning flier from the website and posted it in the bookstore window.
"Davis is a homely town," he said. "She preys on us and our nice, small town feel."
http://daviswiki.org/Crying_Girl_Con_Artist
DAVIS, Calif. — A weeping young woman approaches strangers, tells them a wrenching story about an abusive boyfriend and pleads for $37 for a train ticket. The routine has played out many times on the streets of this college town over the past six months, so many times that some residents have concluded that the woman is a con artist. She is known as the Crying Girl.
Frustrated by a hamstrung Police Department, citizens here have taken to the Internet to digitally tar-and-feather her.
Sunjeet Baadkar, 28, is one of the dozens who have been duped. "Unfortunately, my white-knight complex kicked in," said Baadkar, who was approached by the Crying Girl one evening in late March in the parking lot behind the bookstore where he works. In the fading light she looked like a teenager, he recalled, an Amtrak schedule clutched in her hand and makeup streaked down her face.
"It was the crying that really got to me," he said.
He gave her $37 and hugged her goodbye, imagining her purchasing a ticket and boarding a westbound train to some city where a loving mother would welcome her home and dry her eyes.
Two weeks later, he saw the same girl. Still crying.
"I'm not the vengeful type, but I was angry," Baadkar said.
Bernie Goldsmith, a former Wall Street lawyer who moved home to Davis last year, said he was approached by the Crying Girl in March with the same story, tears once again pooling in her eyes. But he was not fooled.
Goldsmith, 27, called the police but said he got no response. So he decided to post a description of the Crying Girl and the details of her scheme to Daviswiki, a local website that allows residents to post and curate geographically specific information on topics as varied as historic buildings, multicultural poetry nights and Davis trivia.
Soon, dozens of amateur sleuths had posted information about her, including a license plate number for her getaway car, a photograph of her in a red sweatshirt, meticulous details about encounters with her, links to her supposed Facebook and MySpace profiles, a flier warning of her swindle and information about how to file a police report.
"People ran away with it," Goldsmith said. "Daviswiki allowed the community to be their own detectives."
Some of the information gathered has been the type of hard evidence the police appreciate. The Crying Girl has been spotted outside the Safeway, trolling the Target parking lot, stationed on downtown corners and outside bars. Described as a round-faced, buxom woman in her early 20s, the Crying Girl is sometimes referred to simply as "The CG."
City police say the popularity of the website post prompted the department to take notice of the Crying Girl, though they say she has not committed any crimes. Officers have responded to more than a dozen reports, but, "it's not illegal to ask people for money," said Lt. Thomas Waltz of the Police Department.
Waltz likened the situation to an unruly campground bear.
"The parks department doesn't want campers to feed the bears because the bears get used to being fed and they come back looking for more," he said. "Same thing with this girl, the more people give her money, the more she'll come back."
Baadkar, meanwhile, says he has been approached by the Crying Girl three times. He downloaded the warning flier from the website and posted it in the bookstore window.
"Davis is a homely town," he said. "She preys on us and our nice, small town feel."
http://daviswiki.org/Crying_Girl_Con_Artist