16-year-old missing girl is rescued after using hand signal from TikTok in US
Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, November 10
Millions of people have seen videos featuring the signal on TikTok and YouTube, while organisations including the World Bank and the Women’s Funding Network have promoted it since April 2020.
It began as a Covid-era lifeline for women in abusive relationships, intended to be used on video calls as a signal that others should check in on them.
One of such TikTok video recently helped rescued a 16-year-old girl after using hand signal as she was being kidnapped in the US.
The girl flashed the hand signal from a car on a Kentucky interstate, the authorities said. It was created as a way for people to indicate that they are at risk of abuse and need help.
A girl reported missing from Asheville, N.C., and in distress in the passenger seat of a car travelling through Kentucky appeared to be waving through the window to passing cars last Thursday, reports New York Times
But one person in a nearby car recognised the signal from TikTok, and knew she was in trouble.
As per the report, the girl, 16, was using a new distress signal, tucking her thumb into her palm before closing her fingers over it, according to the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office. The signal, created by the Canadian Women’s Foundation for people to indicate that they are at risk of abuse and need help, has spread largely through TikTok in the past year.
The person who spotted the signal called 911 and conveyed a suspicion that the girl was in trouble because she was using the hand gesture. Though the dispatcher and officers were unfamiliar with the signal, sheriff’s deputies pulled the car over to investigate, and learned that the girl’s parents had reported her missing two days earlier.
Sheriff’s deputies arrested the driver, James Herbert Brick, 61, of Cherokee, N.C., and charged him with unlawful imprisonment. Mr. Brick, who the sheriff’s office said had pornographic images of a child on his phone, also faces a child pornography charge.
The girl and Mr. Brick are “acquaintances” but are not related, said Gilbert Acciardo, public affairs officer for the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office.
The girl told investigators that she had traveled with Mr. Brick through North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio, where he had family. He left the family after they learned that the girl was a minor and that she had been reported missing by her family. She said she began trying to get motorists’ attention as they traveled south from Ohio.
It was not clear how many people saw the girl’s hand signal, Officer Acciardo said. When the deputies pulled the car over, the girl made the signal toward them, he said.
