Indianapolis Mothers Rescue Abducted Child Despite IMPD Refusal to Help

A Curious Case of a Shifting Media Narrative and Bluewashing a Police Agency’s Initial Reluctance to Assist in Apprehending the Children’s Abductor

If you’ve read the article from The Indianapolis Star’s Sarah Nelson about the return of baby Kason Thomas to his mother after his abduction, you are undoubtedly aware of the heroics involving his safe return:

The Indianapolis Star article & headline

A chance encounter outside of an Indianapolis gas station started a series of events that would lead to the capture of a suspected kidnapper and the discovery of a missing 5-month-old baby, according to the women who helped solve the case.

Indianapolis police have declined to share the details about how investigating officers found baby Kason Thomas, who went missing Monday in Columbus, Ohio, with his twin brother when a woman took their mother’s running car with them in the back seat. The other child, Kyair Thomas, was found by a passerby early Tuesday morning in the parking lot of the Dayton International Airport.

The story reads like an action rescue movie and a race against the clock. Rather than go into all of the details of how Kason Thomas was found in Indianapolis and returned to his mother and twin brother in Columbus, OH, I’ll instead encourage you to read Nelson’s article, which does an excellent job of making a few things clear:

1. Kason Thomas was found by Indianapolis resident Shyann Delmar and her cousin, Mecka Curry, two young mothers who are not police, after a chance encounter between Delmar and the abductor, a woman who called herself “Mae,” but later turned out to be Nalah T. Jackson, the woman wanted for questioning in the abductions of 5-month-old twins, Kason and Kyair Thomas.
2. Something about the encounter between Delmar and Jackson didn’t sit right with Delmar. After some initial Googling and review of Facebook posts, Delmar became convinced Mae was really Nalah Jackson and discovered that at the time, Kason had not yet been recovered.
3. Delmar and Curry were able to track Jackson down again and befriended her (there was still no sign of Kason at this time) and contacted the Columbus police. Columbus PD asked the two women to notify IMPD detectives, which they did, numerous times. Delmar and Curry — again, who are NOT actual police — tried to tell IMPD detectives their suspicions multiple times, but IMPD did not act.
4. An IMPD officer eventually called Delmar and Curry back. However, this was not the end of the story:

At one point the police called while the women were in the car, the cousins said. Not wanting to tip off the woman, Curry said she pretended to be talking to a friend and indicated they were driving on I-65 south. The women said police found their car and conducted a traffic stop. “Mae” at that point went quiet, the women said. Curry said a police officer initially seemed skeptical about whether it was Jackson, and said they should take her to a shelter.

Curry said she showed police a screenshot of Jackson’s mugshot and after comparing the woman in the car, the officer decided she did in fact appear to be Jackson and took her into custody about 2 p.m. Thursday.

“At that point, that was a relief,” Curry said.

The cousins’ actions leading to the traffic stop were commended by detectives in Columbus investigating the case.

“You guys did fantastic,” a detective wrote in an email, reviewed by IndyStar, that Curry received at 3:33 p.m. Thursday. “Because of your help we are so much closer to finding that baby.”

Nearly two hours before police announced Jackson’s arrest, Curry posted to Facebook: SHE IS IN CUSTODY AND THE BABY IS NOT FOUND.

To recap: IMPD almost let Jackson go because they initially did not believe Delmar and Curry despite the videos and mugshots the young mothers showed the police and the fact that Jackson was right in front of them. And Kason Thomas still needed to be located. Keep in mind this occurred on the afternoon of Thursday, December 22, just hours before the temperatures were set to plummet into negative temperatures.

But, surely, with Jackson in custody and recognition that a 5-month-old baby would be unlikely to survive the looming cold temps, IMPD finally took the two women seriously, sprang into action, and located Kason Thomas, right?

Right?

No.

What happened next is as fortunate as it is maddeningly frustrating:

Aware that temperatures were about to plunge into subzero territory, the cousins knew they had to turn their attention to finding the baby. In the back seat they found their first clue: “Mae” had left behind a bus schedule.

Since the stolen Honda that Jackson is accused of driving also was missing, they decided to trace the bus route and look for vehicles covered in snow that would indicate the car hadn’t moved in a while. At that point, a dangerous winter storm was on the brink of reaching Indianapolis and snow had started falling.

The first stop was 16th Street and then they drove to a shopping center in Speedway and checked out several cars there without success.

The women were about to give up, they said, and were getting hungry. They saw a Papa John’s on Indiana Avenue and were thinking about getting food when they saw a Honda in a parking lot covered in snow.

Curry said she ran to the car and saw baby legs in the back seat and the baby’s face in the rear-view mirror, and her heart began racing, knowing this had to be the vehicle. The back car door was locked, and she feared the worst after hearing no sound. Delmar said she saw a couple officers inside a Blaze Pizza nearby and rushed to tell them about the baby.

“We’ve been alerted that the missing child may be located over here at the vehicle at 10th and Indiana,” an officer is heard saying at about 6:40 p.m. in police radio communications.

At 9:24 pm on Thursday, December 22, IMPD announced Kason Thomas had been safely recovered:

@IMPDNews

See the woman in the upper-left of the photo wearing a baseball cap? That’s Delmar, referred to as one of the “community members who helped in locating” baby Kason. If there is a photo in which Curry appears, even if blurred or in the background, it has not been released by IMPD or local media.

“Helped in locating” is an odd way of describing the actions of two women who essentially singlehandedly located Jackson and the missing child. It’s also odd that IMPD makes a point to thank the officers and detectives “who worked to track down the baby and suspect” before acknowledging “community members” when by all accounts, IMPD did neither. One could argue that Delmar and Curry apprehended Jackson and located Kason despite the IMPD, not because of them. This is perhaps why “Indianapolis police have declined to share the details about how investigating officers found baby Kason Thomas.”

But really, who is keeping score? After all, what matters is two young children are safe and have been returned to their mother. To be fair, the safe return of Kason and Kyair Thomas is the best way this story could have ended (although one could argue — it would have been far better if they weren’t in the car, to begin with, but the boys’ mother, like thousands of other single parents, was trying to make ends meet through Doordash gig work in a country that doesn’t provide adequate childcare, an economic penalty that overwhelmingly targets single working mothers and helped create the conditions favorable for their abduction).

Yet, big questions remain. Namely:

1. Why weren’t the IMPD more responsive or helpful to Delmar and Curry’s pleas to intervene in their involvement with Jackson?
2. Why did IMPD initially insist Delmar and Curry insist Jackson should be taken to a homeless shelter rather than apprehended and questioned?
3. Why didn’t IMPD detectives begin looking for clues left by Jackson as soon as she was apprehended?
4. How can these same mishaps be prevented from happening again?
5. Why isn’t anyone else asking these questions?

This would be an ideal time to begin questioning the practices and behaviors of IMPD that made Jackson’s apprehension and baby Kason’s recovery an unlikely accident instead of a likely outcome. Addressing these questions would prevent IMPD from making similar mistakes in the future, decreasing the chances that child abduction would result in more horrific outcomes.

This level of policy and procedural investigation is unlikely to occur, however, due in part to the media’s commitment to bluewashing, the light treatment of police in local reporting, and the tendency to overplay and singlularly focus on positive police involvement while ignoring or downplaying misteps and preventable mistakes by police that contribute to the physical harm or death of citizens.

For example, look at how The Columbus Dispatch article referred to Kason’s recovery:

This article from The Columbus Dispatch, a USA Today partner of The Indianapolis Star, was published in the evening of Dec. 22 and updated on Dec. 23, less than 24 hours before the full account of Delmar and Curry’s involvement was published in The Indianapolis Star. The Colubus Dispatch account states:

“IMPD told WXIN/WTTV that officers were eating at a nearby restaurant Thursday evening when a woman ran in to report that there was a baby left alone in a car in the Papa John’s parking lot at 955 Indiana Ave. near 10th Street. Police determined the missing car had been parked in the Papa John’s parking lot for about two days.”

An update to the Columbus Dispatch article has yet to be issued at the time of this publication.

Or, consider how CNN has reported the story through an affiliate:

CNN claimed IMPD actively found Kason Thomas

IMPD actively deleted Delmar and Curry from the record.

In this version of events, it’s the two police officers who found Kason and Delmar and Curry have been omitted from the entire story. According to the accompanying tweet from IMPD, it’s IMPD Sgts. Anderson and El, who located Kason.

IMPD taking credit for locating Kason.

Kudos to Alissa for chiming in with the accurate version of events. Other commenters also questioned IMPD’s account and accuracy of events, but IMPD has not issued a clarification (or retraction) and most (nearly all?) Indianapolis media have remained uncritically silent to the omission of Delmar and Curry’s involvement or their importance in apprehending Jackson or rescuing Kason.

Why does this matter?

Beyond upholding the truth, one reason it matters is that Indianapolis pays a lot for its police. The 2023 city budget allocates a record $1.4 billion for policing and public safety. For that level of funding, one might expect IMPD to be a bit more responsive when someone calls — repeatedly — and says, “Hey, I’m sitting next to someone who is wanted by Columbus, OH police for kidnapping a 5-month-old child.” Or, perhaps, we should inquire why IMPD seemingly failed to follow up on Jackson’s overdue arrest with the search and rescue of Kason?

It also matters because, despite record levels of funding and a decreasing homicide rate, Indianapolis media and personalities known for a bias toward conservative and Republican talking points have spent the past year making a local cottage industry of lambasting Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears and Mayor Joe Hogsett for being too “progressive” — a veiled ad hominem that means little other than serving as a conservative virtue signal thrown around when discussing public safety as a way to avoid legitimate discussion of crime.

Will these same conservative mouthpieces now begin to question what appears to be a complete failure of policing by IMPD and their participation in bluewashing despite record levels of funding? Or, will they continue ignoring these failures, remain silently uncritical, and refuse to see opportunities for improving Indiana’s largest local police force? The ability to develop effective, humane and just responses to crime require us to have an honest accounting of police failures and missteps. In Indianapolis, like other places across the United States, we’re a frustratingly long way from achieving this.