A father was surprised by the police after a neighbor called them, mistaking him for a homeless person and thinking he was kidnapping a baby.
Chapman Hamborg from California, USA, was surprised by the police who were called by a neighbor who mistook him for a homeless person and believed he was kidnapping a child.
The unusual story was shared by Hamborg himself on his Instagram page and quickly went viral.
According to Hamborg, to let his wife rest a bit, he put his daughter Florence in a baby carrier and went out for a walk. Like any new dad, he was tired and not concerned about his appearance.
But his somewhat disheveled look caught the attention of a neighbor who assumed, based on his clothes, that he was homeless and called the police, believing the man was kidnapping a child.
In his post, the father explained that, back at his house, he was surprised by the police at his door: “Were you going for a walk? Is that a baby or something? Your neighbors saw you and thought you were homeless,” Hamborg recalled the officers asking him.
“No, I’m not homeless. Just a tired dad,” he replied.
The father of four children, who is an artist and art teacher in Huntington Beach, shared the video about the incident on his social media, accumulating over 50 million views since the end of April.
To People magazine, Hamborg said he does not know who “reported” him but assured he holds no grudge: “I would like to take the opportunity to meet my neighbor and thank her for caring about our kids and the neighborhood,” he said.
“Instead of, you know, turning this into something controversial,” he added.
The incident inspired Hamborg, who donated 20% of the sales from a limited edition of one of his paintings to an organization that fights homelessness, as he shared in an Instagram post in May.
The artwork, titled “Unseen Path,” is a beautiful image of him carrying two children in his arms.
This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
