Stock photo of a French bulldog, because we don’t want any trouble, by Samuel Charron for Unsplash
Final edit: We did hear back from Mabel’s owner. He says that while the accused man probably did not steal Mabel from the yard, the evidence does not support the story that he tried very hard to return Mabel home.
Conclusion: Everyone involved perhaps made some mistakes, out of love for a little bulldog mix named Mabel.
It’s not unusual — in an era of understaffed police forces and increased technological capabilities — for people to take matters of stolen property into their own hands. But vigilantism can go wrong. Some say it did in the case of Mabel the Boston/Frenchie bulldog mix, who was either lost or stolen last Friday, depending on who you ask.
It seems that the man initially accused of heisting the pricey pup, did not actually steal her, and, in fact, might have saved her life.
But emerging details could not slow the momentum of Mabel’s panicked owner and a riled-up internet mob intent on not only on Mabel’s recovery, but also, if necessary, retribution.
The good new is, Mabel is safe and home.
The lingering problem, say some neighbors, is that a man was, under false pretenses, publicly shamed for his criminal record and living in a sober house, doxxed and identified across the interwebs as a dog snatcher. On top of that, some say, the man deserves the reward promised, “no questions asked,” to anyone who got Mabel home.
Without going too deep into the brush, here’s what we gathered about the Mabel saga.
Mabel went missing from her yard in the 5400 block of Gaston last Friday evening. Her frantic owner Andrew Sibley began blanketing social media with pleas to help find her, and, as we do, our neighborhood’s many dog lovers snapped to attention.
That same night, a Peak’s Addition neighbor shared on Nextdoor a photo she took near Gaston at Beacon, which showed a man walking with the wide-eyed Frenchton in his arms. A second image showed the exhausted-seeming man resting on a concrete bench, still holding the pup.
According to one news story, “it was the strange expression on a dog’s face that led someone driving through East Dallas on Friday evening to photograph a 2-year-old French bulldog mix named Mabel and a man carrying her awkwardly in dirty, disheveled clothing.”
By Sunday, the internet was hot on the trail of this “dirty and disheveled” suspected dognapper, and his photo was posted internationally across platforms including Facebook, Nextdoor and Reddit.
“Mabel was taken away by this man …,” and “Mabel was stolen …” read the captions, which were followed by hundreds of comments.
Some were encouraging messages from strangers who said as they typed they were out searching the streets of East Dallas for Mabel.
But others were disturbing, calling the man in the photos profane names and suggesting acts of violence.
The dark side of web sleuthing
“This loser looks like he doesn’t have much to lose,” commented one person to a group who was planning to “go get the dog back,” which was now possible, because Redditors had used facial recognition sites to identify the man, found an arrest record and publicized his address at a nearby sober living house.
“I’ve seen comments from people in Canada and Australia that were following and just believe this guy kidnapped this dog,” neighbor Kristi Shanahan says in a Facebook post, from which we quote with her permission.
But Shanahan — who closely followed the Mabel narrative on various social media groups throughout the weekend and this week — now believes the dirty clothing is a result of heroic effort on the part of the accused.
“Yes, he’s completely muddy and disheveled. Why? Because he’d been diving in the alley trying to contain a Frenchie. If you haven’t chased a Frenchie, they’re squirrly as f___,” she notes. “Hell of a guy to go to those lengths to keep the pup safe and in return, his face is plastered all over the world and he’s labeled a thief, among other things.”
On the positive side, the media blasts helped the owner locate Mabel.
As a local news reporter put it, “High tech amateur detective work by hundreds of online sleuths” led to the animal’s recovery.
On the negative side, well, Sibley described the awkward and borderline-violent reunion in a since-deleted, widely circulated Facebook post, which both he and his girlfriend also shared to Reddit.
Note: We’ve reached out to Sibley through a Facebook message, and will update this if we hear back. Same goes for the man who had Mabel. We’re still not sure if Mabel was wearing tags, how the man attempted to find Mabel’s owner, and what he and Mabel were up to all day Saturday.
When Sibley arrived, he noted in the post, the supposed dognapper was “kissing Mabel on the nose.” As an elderly man (presumably another resident or caretaker at the group home) looked on, Sibley took his dog back from the man, not before brandishing a knife and a “20-inch piece of thickly scheduled pipe,” he wrote in the post.
When amateur detectives get it wrong
By this time, several people had testified that the man in those photos did not steal Mabel. Rather, he saved her from being run down in traffic.
“A bunch of us chased her down and he was the only one fast enough to actually catch her. I asked if it was his dog and he said no. We disbanded and he took the dog to try to find the owner. … she was almost hit on Gaston a couple times, it was super nerve wracking. I was walking behind him probably right up until the photo was taken,” one eye witness from Tremont Place posted on one of the many Nextdoor threads shared over the weekend.
“Whether someone tried to steal her or whether she escaped, we’ll never know because nobody was there to witness it,” says Shanahan. “What we do know is that there’s a whole group of people who spent their time trying to save her from death and in the end, the person who achieved that, was this guy.”
It is totally understandable for a theft victim to want to go reclaim their property, ten fold if that property is a beloved pet, but, as we learned at the 2013 Boston bombing and 2016 Dallas police massacre, it is possible to get it wrong, in which case a reversal of course is in order, if that’s even possible.
That’s why this situation is still bothering neighbors including Kristi Shanahan and several others I have heard from.
“I was hoping that as more of the rescue witnesses told the owners what had actually happened, they’d edit their posts and ultimately make apologies,” Shanahan says. “But nope. [They] doubled down in their comments and said something to the effect of ‘well at least he didn’t hurt Mabel and he seemed to think he was doing the right thing.'”
She believes the owner and his girlfriend, who also pulled no punches locating the dog, should issue a thank you and also an apology. After Shanahan made this comment, the owner’s girlfriend did in fact issue an apology on social media on Wednesday: “I apologize to everyone especially Lamar. No one stole my dog. She escaped and was scared. So was I!! He saved her! … we are reaching out to make amends with Lamar.”
As Reddit user Mike Brozovic put it, (with permission) “I completely get why they freaked out. If I saw that photo and it was my dog, I also would have thought he took her, but now it’s time to admit she simply got out, or if you need to save face, that at least he is not your perp.”
“And BTW,” Shanahan says, “there was a reward being offered for the return of Mabel so the right thing to do would be to make sure he gets it. And maybe double it.”
Shanahan is doing something about that.
She set up a Go Fund Me to get the wrongly accused man his reward. She concludes, “Let’s celebrate Lamar for being a wonderful, caring human and going out of his way to save Mabel and get her home.” The fundraiser has garnered more than $2,000 in the first five hours.
