Recently, we at BABSCon have heard disturbing accounts of an incident involving a young girl at our convention. After the convention ended, it was reported via the tumblr of a fan table staffer for SacAnime that an 11-year-old girl approached the table in distress. According to the account, she said was trying to hide from an individual who was following her and asking to take her to his room. To clarify, BABSCon staff was not alerted to this situation as it was happening, and we were only told about the incident after the con. Nevertheless, we take this matter very seriously, and are investigating it to the best of our ability. There are elements of the story that remain unclear, but we are vigorously striving to determine the truth.
We are attempting to reach out to the parents of the child, and were recently contacted by parties claiming to be her parents. They contend that the incident was exaggerated by the SacAnime fan table staffers’ descriptions as published on Tumblr, but we are attempting to verify these claims. We have also been collecting statements from SacAnime staff who witnessed the event.
Unfortunately, at this point, no one with the necessary legal standing— such as the girl’s parents or the SacAnime staffers— is willing to press charges. Consequently, we have no means by which to initiate police action or acquire a subpoena to compel the venue to release their security footage.
If you have any information at all about this incident, such as the identity or a description of the perpetrator, please email us at report@babscon.com. We are very eager to hear from you and anonymous tips are welcome.
BABSCon understands that the opinions and actions of the volunteers representing SacAnime during BABSCon were those of the specific individuals in question, and not that of SacAnime as an organization. Because the issue has been raised elsewhere, we want to make clear our position on any further connection between SacAnime and BABSCon. We strongly believe that the individual SacAnime representatives’ failure to report the incident was irresponsible and could have lead to further endangerment of the child. We also firmly reject SacAnime Director Dan Houck’s stance, quoted from an email to us:
“The girls [sic] parents were informed of the situation. Shouldn’t it ultimately be their responsibility? My staff members helped the girl and notified her parents, who were at the con.”
The correct thing to do would have been to notify any of the numerous nearby BABSCon staff, the representatives of FLARE in attendance, or the Hotel’s Security or Staff. As we have stated before, both our Registration table and Info Desk were mere feet away from the fan table. SacAnime staff, who had eyes on the stalker in question, could have given us a description of the individual, which could have have helped us eject him from the con and remand him into police custody. Since they did not, BABSCon will require a mandatory training session for all those who wish to have fan tables in the future with BABSCon. This will ensure that in the future, such incidents are reported properly and promptly.
BABSCon has never said that any SacAnime staff are banned from attending our convention— and they are not— though we would have strong reservations about giving SacAnime another fan table. Their failure to report a potential crime in progress, and their Director’s statement that his team acted appropriately, give us pause to say the least. While we are grateful that they took action in protecting this child and have stated that they tried to have a staff member follow her wherever she went, this simply wasn’t enough. This incident should have been brought to the attention of BABSCon staff, who would in turn have notified the authorities.
If SacAnime is willing to participate in our training session for vendors and fan table staffers, we might reconsider offering them a fan table in the future. But if not, we have no place for anyone who will not report crimes they witness, or help ensure that those who would do our children harm are handled by the appropriate authorities.
We apologize for any confusion.
BABSCon strives to provide a happy and safe environment for convention-goers of all ages. Rest assured that, should we find the perpetrator, he will be promptly reported to the police and banned from all of our future events. The sort of behavior that has been reported is illegal, immoral, dangerous, and runs contrary to the spirit of our community. We ask for your assistance in tracking down this individual, and hope to see you next year in San Francisco!
In service to the Community,
Sonya Hipper - Con Chair, BABSCon 2014
Olivia Daniels - Con Vice Chair, BABSCon 2014
WeAreBorg - Head of Public Relations, BABSCon 2014
Latest official word on the BABScon incident.
New information: people claiming to be the parents of the girl in question have contacted BABS staff, and stated that the story from the SacAnime staffers was “exaggerated,” and refused to press charges. The legitimacy of these claims is currently being investigated.
Because neither the parents, the SacAnime staff, or anybody else with any legal standing here is willing to make this a criminal investigation, the security footage has not been released by the hotel. Therefore my earlier statements regarding elevator cameras were incorrect. The lack of available video evidence of the event should not be taken as evidence that the attack did not occur. However, the refusal to press charges when that footage should reveal the identity of an attempted child abductor strongly indicates that neither the (supposed) parents nor the SacAnime workers actually believe that the cameras would contain anything that supports the abduction story.
SacAnime Director Dan Houck did apparently claim that all responsibility for the incident ended when the girl was returned to her parents, and that his employees and/or volunteers acted appropriately. There had been speculation that this quote was fabricated by the Daily Dot to shift blame from Saintchesire to SacAnime, but apparently he actually is that disinterested in the actual policies and laws regarding child safety. The irresponsible, dangerous, illegal, and generally dickish behavior from SacAnime “give us pause to say the least.”
Despite this, SacAnime is not actually specifically banned from the convention. Instead, all people planning to run tables at future BABScons will be required to go through a mandatory training session, such that in the future everybody working at the convention actually follows the proper policies regarding such emergencies rather than dicking around all day and then posting about them two days later on tumblr.
I apologize for any and all misinformation in my previous posts on the subject.
Meanwhile, my overall position on the incident has not changed: most of the story is blatantly false, the core of it is probably false, and if there is any truth here then Saintchesire and her cronies are somewhere between imbecile and monster. However, some good has come of the incident, as the director of SacAnime has been revealed to be an irresponsible self-centered hazard by his response to a (probably) fictional event rather than a real abduction. And BABScon has upgraded its safety level from “better than any other convention I’ve been to” to “higher than any reasonable person could expect, but apparently not enough for the stigma surrounding bronies”.
“CLAIMING” to be her parents? That’s a weird qualification. After what I’ve seen, I wouldn’t put that level of desperate byzantine bullshit past the anti-brony crowd.
Regardless…….
SacAnime Director Dan Houck’s response is mind-blowing in its callousness. Fuck that “gives us pause” line. imho Babscon should’ve upgraded the ban threat of the first statement all the way up to Adam Silver status (“….FOR LIFE!”) in the second. He was the authority figure responsible for his people and his table. That’s before you add the fact that this guy is SacAnime’s FOUNDER AND OWNER. If anyone should know better, its someone like him. Sweet Christmas, how do you run a major convention for a decade and be that damn ignorant about basic security ish? And ya’ll have children at SacAnime….?
