Search For Suspects Intensifies After 2 More Attempted Lurings In N.J.
NEW MILFORD, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — Police are sounding a serious warning after another attempted child abduction in New Jersey.
The latest incident was yet another to rock the northern part of the Garden State. Officials have released three sketches of alleged suspects in recent weeks and released another on Friday afternoon related to an attempt in New Milford, where a 17-year-old girl said a man tried to get her into his car Thursday afternoon.
The 17-year-old, who did not want to be identified, told CBS 2's Christine Sloan exclusively about what happened.
"Yesterday, I walking home after school on my bus and this man in a silver car pulled over and said 'Would you like a ride home?' He leaned over from his passenger window and I looked at him and I was like 'absolutely not' and I kept walking and he just drove right away," the teen said.
She also described the suspect in detail.
"He looks fairly youngish, like in the mid-40s. He has hair on the side, but bald on top. He has big, brown eyes and a big, large nose," the 17-year-old told Sloan.
Police said it was the second attempted luring by the same man in New Milford in one day. At 8:15 a.m., a 10-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother were also approached by the same man, police said.
The children ran away, which is exactly what educators all over Bergen County are telling their students to do, CBS 2's Jessica Schneider reported Friday night.
"What we tell our kids to do is to yell, punch, scream, make a raucous that anyone around is made aware this child is being taken against their will," Washington Township Schools Superintendent Dr. Geoffrey Zoeller said.
Those incidents happened after a 13-year-old girl in Westwood was targeted Thursday morning.
Cops said a man approached the teen in a grey hatchback as she was heading to school on Lafayette Avenue alongside Voorhis Park. He asked the girl to get in his car, police said, but she refused and the man took off.
As students made their way into Westwood Junior High on Friday morning, they noticed a police presence in front of the school. It was much of the same Thursday when cops stopped drivers and asked for information on the attempted lurings.
The police chief in Westwood told CBS 2's Sloan the 13-year-old noticed an NYPD sticker on the front windshield of the car the suspect was driving.
"If anyone else has an incident like this, try to take notice. If you can't get a plate number of a car, which would be the best option, try to take notice of something like a sticker like that would stand out," Chief Frank Regino said.
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Parents are being told to educate their kids about this stranger danger, especially with Halloween just a week and a half away.
"My daughter knows the girl, where it happened yesterday morning, so a little more nerve-racking for us," resident Jennifer Ouellette said.
These latest incidents follow an anxious past few weeks with similar attempted luring reports in Bergen County, including Maywood, Oradell, Hackensack, Ridgewood and Fairlawn. It isn't clear if anything of the attempted lurings are connected.
Westwood schools sent warnings to students and parents about the recent incident involving the junior high student and police in nearby Upper Saddle River have also notified parents and students in hopes of preventing an incident there.
Earlier this week, police said accusations of a man trying to lure two boys in Lyndhurst was a hoax.
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