Thugs grabbed the Meitiv family's children simply for being outdoors, and held them for hours without telling their parents. Later they demanded the parents ransom them by agreeing never to leave them alone.

I do not think the parents should have caved in on this vital point. Since one of the children is 10 years old, I think that they could understand together what it means to be kidnaped by "authorities", and that an honorable rescue may take time.

When I was 10 years old, today's insane American overprotectiveness had not yet developed. It did not occur to anyone to claim that children shouldn't go out by themselves in Manhattan.