Quote.com

Rumors fuel report of Fairfield child abduction
FAIRFIELD, Nov 07, 2009 (Connecticut Post - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX News Network) -- Fears about an attempted child abduction were triggered this week after a driver made an apparently innocent request for directions from a 12-year-old boy, police said. According to Deputy Police Chief Gary MacNamara, the boy was walking home from school on Meadowbrook Road when a male driver, who just left Interstate 95, stopped and asked for directions to Home Depot. The boy, MacNamara said, ran home and reported the incident to his mother, who called police. But an investigation determined there was no abduction attempt, MacNamara said. "It was just poor judgment on the part of the driver to ask a child for directions," he added. Unfortunately, MacNamara said, "as these things do, (rumors) spread quickly" through local schools that someone had tried to snatch a child from the street. One woman even berated a police officer at the headquarters' front desk for what she felt was authorities' failure to notify parents about the incident. MacNamara said when an incident occurs that police officials feel parents should be aware of, then notification is made through the schools, the media, and, if necessary, the Reverse 911 system. "This was portrayed as something that it was not," MacNamara said of the Meadowbrook Road incident. He added, however, that the 12-year-old acted appropriately when he notified his parents. To see more of the Connecticut Post, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.connpost.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. Copyright (C) 2009, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

« Back to headlines

« Quote Home