Michael Trotta and Elinor Trotta
A week ago, on February 24, I was woken up at approximately 2:00 am. My cellular phone was ringing. I saw it was an amber alert and turned off my phone. In the morning, I learnt that all this fuss was about Michael Trotta, who was wanted for having kidnapped his 3-year old daughter, Elinor.
I could not figure out what was the need to wake up the whole North-East of the US. What were folks with no cars and no chance to be driving like myself supposed to do? Scan the streets with binoculars from their window to try to see the man?
A few days after this vociferous amber alert, I tried to know more about the why and the how of the case. All I have been able to get so far is that Trotta was arrested without incident. Elinor was back with mum, who was flown from Delaware to Spencer Massachusetts, where Trotta was caught. The job of the media was done, meaning that it has told the story it is paid to tell or thinks it has to tell: the police had caught the bad guy, little girl was safe, and the good citizens’ tax money was well spent.
On this slow Sunday night, I fortuitously happen to catch the first episode of the return of Madam Secretary on CBS, whose premises – a beautiful white female making it in the male-dominated world of K street- are not striking by their originality to me. The reason I kept watching was that Madam Secretary- Elisabeth McCord- at the beginning of the episode, visits a female friend, who opens her heart to her: she is devastated to have lost the custody of her child to her husband, a banker, who has regular work hours.
Damn! Perhaps the fathers’ rights movement and myself missed something. The family court system favors men, at least those with money- like bankers- and steady work hours. That leads me to jump to the conclusion that Michael Trotta is not a banker. But if anybody has reliable information about Michael Trotta, please share it.
Fearless Fathers 