ATTEMPTED ABDUCTION…???
That’s the subject line of the latest mass e-mail. It’s flat out alarming and has a number of people in full panic mode . So I checked in with Marty Nevil and Captain Mike Miller of the Highland Park DPS.
Here’s the timeline: The incident occurred Saturday 2/20 at 2:15 in the afternoon. The mass e-mail with the subject line “ATTEMPTED ABDUCTION” was sent at 12:54 a.m. on Sunday 2/21. The police were not called until Sunday 2/21 at 5:35 in the evening.
Nevil said, “Time is of the essence.” She encourages area residents to call 911 immediately if such an event occurs. And, while obviously very concerned about the incident, Captain Miller was clear that “there was not an attempted abduction or any grabbing, he talked to her.”
The original e-mail.
Date: February 21, 2010 12:54:56 AM CST
Subject: ABDUCTION ATTEMPT….PLEASE READ
Our 7th grade daughter was walking home from a babysitting job at our friends’ home at Golf and Normandy. She was walking to my parent’s home at Golf and Mockingbird. There are only two houses and one street in between. It was 2:15pm on Saturday afternoon.
As she was walking down Golf, a hispanic man in a white pick up truck pulled up beside her. He asked her if she would like a ride. She said no and kept walking…trying to ignore him. He then proceeded to ask her if she was hungry and if she wanted something to eat. By this time she was at Potomac, the one street between my parent’s block and our friends’ block. Thank goodness she had the thought to yell that the house she was next to at that point (the house behind my parents) was her house and ran up the sidewalk and onto the front porch. The man drove off. Once [name] was sure he was gone, she ran the last half block to my parents. Of course, we are sothankful she is OK and that nothing else happened. It scared us, and her, to death.
When we talked to the police, they said a similar situation happened last week but instead involving a white man in a white van. We wanted to share as a reminder to be vigilant and to reinforce to your kids how to stay safe and what to do in those situations no matter how old they are. It has been a while since we had that conversation with [name].
UPDATE:
The press release:
Suspicious Incident
The following suspicious incident was reported to the Highland Park Department of Public Safety on February 21, 2010. The incident occurred on February 20, 2010 at 2:15 hrs. A juvenile was walking Southbound on Golf Drive from Normandy Ave when she observed a white truck pull up beside her. The driver asked her “do you need a ride”? and she replied “no”. The suspect then asked her “are you hungry, do you want….” and before he could finish his sentence, she said “this is my house and ran up on the porch”.
The Victim stated that the suspect was Hispanic and medium to dark in color, had dark hair that was “thick” on top and dark sideburns. He was wearing a white short- sleeve shirt that buttoned all the way down, had no facial hair, hat, or glasses. She said that she thinks he spoke with a slight accent.
The vehicle is described as a 2 door beat-up looking truck with faded white paint and she d not see anything in the bed of the truck or inside the truck. The Victim stated that she tried not to keep looking at him and that once she ran up to a house and was on the porch; she hid behind a post and watched as he approached Mockingbird Ln. but did not see which direction he turned.
This information has been shared with the University Park Police Department and other D/FW police departments. The information has also been posted to the Highland Park Crime Watch web site.
Please be on the lookout for anyone or vehicle that matches this description/suspicious behavior. Call 911 immediately! Even if you are unsure, we want you to call right away. Officers are usually right around the corner, calling 911 right away allows them enough time to locate the possible suspect. If not, that opportunity is lost.
UPDATE 2:
I’ve received several e-mails about the timeline above. Mainly, readers are asking how the mom could have sent the e-mail mentioning what police told her if she did not make the report until much later. Marty Nevil from HP DPS told me that the mom “asked a University Park resource officer [on Saturday afternoon] just in passing [about whether she should report the incident.] That officer encouraged them to call HPDPS to report the incident since it occurred in our jurisdiction.”
She did finally report the incident on Sunday evening.
We are not protected by a bubble here. It’s real life. Yes, use the buddy system. I used to think the scary ice cream truck driver was an abductor too when I was growing up in Preston Hollow!
This brings to light a few glaring omissions from my original formula http://tinyurl.com/yhxz6kn
Refined formula follows:
100 – (# mentions “children” or derivatives thereof) – (# exclamation points) – (every missed space between words) + (10 if i know you, 5 if i’ve heard of you) – (5 per generic motherly blanket warning) – [(# mentions of race) x (10 if it’s a catch-all pejorative: mexican, chinaman, oriental, colored)] = relevance grade.
Off we go..
100 – (2; their daughter, “your kids”) – (0) – (1) + (0) – (5, lines 21-23) – (1) = 91
So this one was worthwhile, apparently. I will definitely need to tinker further as we progress.
It took 27 hours to call police? The parents sent out the e-mail about 16 hours before they called police but referenced what the police told them about a white van in UP?
Something doesn’t pass the smell test here.
matt – Good thought. Here are my proposed changes to your brilliant formula (in bold):
100 – (# mentions “children” or derivatives thereof) – (# exclamation points) – (every missed space between words) + (10 if i know you, 5 if i’ve heard of you) – (5 per generic motherly blanket warning) – [(# mentions of race) x (10 if it’s a catch-all pejorative: mexican, chinaman, oriental, colored)] – (5 for a subject line in all caps) – (# words in the text of the email in all caps) – [(5 if sender includes “please read” in subject line) x (10 if subject line also includes “urgent”, “important” or similar words)] = relevance grade.
With these modifications, your score would have been 81, well within the “ignore” range.
@grump … something doesnt pass the smell test here? Maybe the daughter didnt tell her parents immediately or sometimes people think things through a while and then think “That wasnt right … I really should report that.” Two incidences that have happened to me: A few years back, I saw a man in my backyard (in U.P.) At first I thought he was someone’s yard man who was in the wrong yard. At that time, it never occurred to me someone would try to break in my house or garage in broad daylight. I actually went out and asked if I could help him as he ran out my back fence (I was a totally innocent 20 something at the time!) After a while, I called my neighbor and asked her if she thought he was actually trying to steal something or was I being an alarmist. Her response … hang up the phone and call the police!
When I was 13, something very similar to this police report happened to me … I thought someone was slowing down to ask me directions … but he actually exposed himself as I neared the passenger window of the car. I,too, ran up to the nearest home and banged on the door (no one was there). I raced home and ran to my room. I never told my parents this story until this year when I was home visiting (Im almost 45!) Im sure after these parents sent out their email, several of their friends and contacts encouraged them to call the police!
Thanks for letting me vent … their story is plausible to me!
While I’m sure this incident really happened, I do question the wisdom of waiting so long to report it, unless the child didn’t tell them until the next day. Not to second-guess the parents involved, but if my kid had experienced this, my very first thought would be “I think we should call the police and report this”. Everyone who lives in the Bubble knows how quickly our police respond; the sooner they know, the sooner they can investigate & warn the community.
Like the young girl in the report and G, I had a very similar incident happen to me when I was 13 or 14 and walking home from school. Like this girl, I ran to a friend’s house and hid on the porch (they weren’t home). I didn’t tell my parents about it until the next day because I didn’t know how to describe it/what to say. I also didn’t look directly at the suspect or his car so would not have been able to provide an accurate description.
Lesson learned is that we live in a world where we need to prepare our young girls that this may happen and, if it does, it is important to first make sure they are safe and second to let us and the police know right away.
I’m finally at peace with my feeling that all these women are completely nuts. I give up trying to understand their behavior.
And answering the question from the other thread of what constitutes looking like a Parkie? WASPy, exceptions made only for upper crust Asian’s and Indian’s, they must drive a late model luxury sedan, shiny new foreign sports car or gigantic SUV – everyone else that crosses the border into our town is a DANGEROUS KID MOLESTING, FATHER RAPING, MOTHER KILLER!!!! And they want to kick our dogs, too!
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