State Patrol Not Amused By Kids’ Prank In Car

Sun., Jan. 22, 1995

Compiled From Wire Services

The children thought it was just a funny sign. The seven patrol cars chasing them did not.

The chase began Friday afternoon when a motorist with a cellular phone reported seeing a child in another car on Interstate 5 holding up a sign that said: “Help, I’ve been kidnapped.”

Twenty minutes later, four state police cars, two Marion County sheriff’s cars and a patrol car from the town of Jefferson stopped the vehicle. The driver was the mother of three children playing in the back.

Suddenly, one of the children held up a sign that read: “We are being kidnapped by an alien.”

The woman was released but only after officers gave her a stern lecture about how much trouble her children had caused and the danger to other motorists.

“And the mom knew what the kid was doing,” said Lt. Jack Rogers of the Oregon State Police.

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