Stay safe on way to school
With the school year anew, parents have equipped their budding students with the means to get a good education. But what most parents seem to overlook, police say, are the dangers that their little loved ones face when encountering a predator.
With the school year anew, parents have equipped their budding students with the means to get a good education.
But what most parents seem to overlook, police say, are the dangers that their little loved ones face when encountering a predator.
This week, three children were indecently assaulted or baited by prowlers while going to or from school, and a fourth, standing with his mom, was abducted, police said.
In the first incident, an 11-year-old girl told police that while walking to school about 8 a.m. on Monday, a man in his 30s approached her, touched her buttocks and ran off near 16th and Page streets in North Philadelphia. That man is described as a black man, 5 feet 5, medium build with a dark complexion and a beard.
Later that day, a 13-year-old girl reported that a man tried to lure her into his car on Bustleton Avenue near St. Vincent Street in Oxford Circle. When she refused, the man jumped out of a a black Ford Explorer and grabbed her arm. She wrestled away and fled.
Her assailant was described as Hispanic, in his 20s, 5 feet 6, average build with bushy eyebrows and a thin mustache.
The next day, at 2:45 p.m., a black man with a light complexion and beard, who was driving an older green Pontiac, asked a 10-year-old boy to get into his car at Merion Street near Girard Avenue in West Philly, police said. The boy fled and the man drove off.
In a fourth incident, a quick-thinking cop thwarted the abduction of a 5-year-old boy in Germantown Tuesday night.
An unidentified man, who police say was under the influence of drugs, snatched the child as he stood with his mother on Collom Street near Wakefield, and fled.
A 14th District cop nearby caught him and returned the boy to his frantic mother, police said.
The man was charged with kidnapping and related offenses, said Lt. Dan Bagnell of the Special Victims Unit.
In cases like these, Bagnell advises children to adhere to the golden rule: "Don't talk to strangers and don't get into a stranger's car." *
