Child Abduction Digest 5-22-12

Wellington, FL
Reports of a man attempting to lure two students into his car have parents and officials at dozens of western Palm Beach County schools on alert.

The Palm Beach Post ( http://bit.ly/KPWkr9) reports no students were injured or abducted in the incidents reported last week. At least two principals sent letters home, asking parents to caution their children.

Loxahatchee Grove, FL
The mother of a Loxahatchee Groves middle school girl approached by a man on the street last week said that he is likely the same man who tried to abduct a Wellington girl two days later.

Tiffanie Hoffman also said her 13-year-old daughter, a sixth-grader at Osceola Creek Middle School, was approached by a man who tried to lure her into his car multiple times as she walked home on Orange Boulevard on May 14.

Phoenix, OR
When a middle school student was approached by a stranger while waiting for the school bus on North Rose Street and South Pacific Highway, school officials say she knew exactly what to do.

"What we've been doing to teach safety amongst our students was followed through," Talent Middle School principal Curt Shenk said.

On Friday, Phoenix Police say a young girl was approached by a man driving a van. Police Chief Derek Bowker said the man told her the buses weren't running and he'd give her a ride to school.

But police say the girl walked away. That's when the driver saw an officer watching, police say, then took off.

Bronx, NY
Civic activists Joyce Wilson and Frank Belcher said, this week, it defies logic for parents to have their young children wait alone at their schools up to an hour before the start of the school day.

Wilson and Belcher made their comments in response to reports that the mother of a 6-year-old boy, who was almost kidnapped last Friday morning, was left in front of PS 160 an hour before the start of his school's breakfast program.

 

John Vazquez, the custodial worker who foiled the Section 5 kidnapping of the boy, said that the 6 year old was left, unattended, in front of the school at 7 a.m. on a daily basis since the start of the school year in September.

 

In the wake of last Friday's near-tragedy, the boy's guardians now take the child to school, no longer leaving him unattended, Vazquez said Tuesday.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/22/2811624/school-officials-on-alert-after.html#storylink=cpy