North Jersey parents, school officials tense over reports of man luring kids
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2012
BY DENISA R. SUPERVILLE
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Reports of strangers approaching, and sometimes following, youngsters in Maywood, Oradell, Hackensack, Hawthorne, Ridgewood and Fair Lawn have parents, youngsters and school officials on edge throughout North Jersey.
Fairview Police Department is the latest to disclose a possible luring after an 11-year-old boy reported last week that a man in a van had followed him home from school. The boy told the school resource officer that the man was in a gray van and had been staring at him while he played outside during lunch time, police said.
No arrests have been made in connection with the incidents and investigators, who are working together, said Wednesday they do not have a suspect and haven’t determined if the cases are related.
“We are not at all certain that it’s the same person,” Oradell Police Chief Frank Florio said. “There are some similarities in the descriptions and the vehicles, but it’s not in any way certain that it is just one person or that they are related in any way. That’s what we are looking to figure out.”
With the exception of one of the Ridgewood incidents, all the perpetrators have been described as white and middle-aged. The vehicles have been described as a Jeep Wrangler in Hackensack and a small gray car in the Oradell and Washington Township incidents.
