A recently shared video shows a white woman sneaking into a neighbor’s yard at night and pulling the plug on an above-ground pool.
As water gushed all over the yard, the woman quickly ran out of view on the fuzzy home security camera.
The person who posted the clip, however, filled in a few additional details — and the internet is up in arms. Scott Enlow, who describes himself as a retired police officer in his verified X account, wrote that a single mom in Illinois spent days fixing up the yard and setting up the swimming pool for her two children.
In his Aug. 4 caption, he posed a question to readers: “Her neighbor, bothered by the noise of the children playing, snuck over one night and took it away in an instant. What’s a good punishment [for] the person who did this?”
According to the timestamp on the Wyze footage, the pool sabotage occurred on June 20.
Another video making the rounds claimed the mother took the culprit to court and received $20,000 in restitution to cover the cost of replacing the pool and the lawn. None of the details about the incident have been independently verified, however. That didn’t stop viewers from trying the woman in the court of public opinion.
And with nearly six million views, there’s plenty of opinions to go around. On Threads, parents came out in full force in the comments, flabbergasted by the alleged motive of the so-called “pool slasher.”
While some commenters called for criminal charges and jail time, many were less focused on punishment than on what they saw as an attack on childhood itself.
“The sound of children laughing and playing is one of the best sounds around,” one Threads user wrote. Another added, “Being this mad about children actually playing outside is wild.” A third suggested the alleged act reflected something deeper, writing, “All I’m hearing is, ‘I didn’t have a fun childhood, so neither can you.’”
