Mom Gets Bad Feeling about Couple at Grocery Checkout. When Suddenly She Hears 'Say Bye to Mommy'
Though it is nice to think that human trafficking only happens in bad faraway places, it simply is not the case. Men, women, and children are trafficked by the millions every single year.
The United States is not exempt from such a terrible crime. What exactly is human trafficking?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security defines it as “modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.”
One mother posted a horrifying and personal account of what she believes was an attempt of human trafficking on her Facebook page on February 19, 2016.
Amanda Cropsey Florczykowski of Longview, Texas, believed that her then 2-year-old daughter may have been targeted by human traffickers. Florczykowski took her daughter shopping with her one afternoon.
As she and her daughter were standing in the checkout line, the couple in front of them reportedly commented on how cute the little girl was. They also asked how old she was, which at first felt like a friendly and normal conversation.
Florczykowski quickly became uncomfortable when they repeatedly made comments about her daughter’s age, along with strange body language. Suddenly, the couple felt physically too close.
She instinctively picked up her daughter, but then she says the strange woman asked to hold her instead. By this point, the woman was so close that Florczykowski’s daughter reached out her arms innocently to the woman.
The woman then reportedly said a chilling sentence that haunted Florczykowski: “Say bye to mommy.” The suspicious woman then resisted handing back the toddler, even as Florczykowski aggressively pulled her daughter back.
The couple left empty-handed, but another strange man was standing alone in a closed checkout lane. He kept looking over his shoulder at the mother and daughter.
He was clearly not shopping and seemed to be associated with the couple who had just left. Florczykowski loudly talked to the cashier and requested that security employees take notice of what she was observing in the checkout lane.
The cashier was surprised to learn that Florczykowski did not know the strange couple. She assumed that they knew each other based on the body language and close proximity that the couple tactically used to appear less suspicious.
Thankfully, the mother and daughter arrived home safely after the terrifying ordeal. But, Florczykowski felt the urge to share her story in hopes that it makes others more aware of their surroundings and to the fact that human trafficking can take place anywhere.
She wrote, “I’m just like you; a mom and I hope my experience helps you to be, not fearful, but cautious! 2 Timothy 1:7 ‘For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.'”
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