Safety Alert - Davis Square Bike Path & children

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

Passing this along.  Heads up, please.

- - - -

A message from Benjamin G. Brown School Principal Kathleen Seward

I am writing to alert you to an incident that was reported after school yesterday.

After dismissal yesterday, January 24th, a fifth grade student was approached on the community bike path going into Davis Square by a man walking his dog. The man allegedly asked the student if he/she wanted candy. When the student responded no, the man asked if the student was sure/ The student said yes, and then the man continued walking his dog along the bike bath away from the square. There were no other words exchanged and no physical contact. When the student arrived home, the parent/guardian was alerted and a police report was filed.

The police have been working with the family and with me to follow up on the report. In the coming days, there will be an increased police presence along the bike path during the time of dismissal. As a school, we will be reviewing stranger danger guidelines with all students. If you see or hear anything related or similar to this incident, please do just as this family did and alert the police as well as me. As always, do not hesitate to call me with questions or for further clarification.

Best,
Kathleen Seward

Comments

[zenala.livejournal.com]

So, basically, some guy was walking his dog and enjoying the nice weather yesterday and didn't know that you're not supposed to offer kids candy in this country...

I mean, really, it's not like he was saying "come over to my house" or "want a ride?" or anything even remotely sketchy. He offered candy, the kid didn't want candy. To my knowledge, actual cases of poisoned candy are exceedingly rare, as are, for that matter, stranger kidnappings. Also, like kidnapping, molestation is far more often the work of someone the child already knows.

(If you have hard data, such as FBI statistics, that refutes what I'm claiming, please post it. Estimates from popular literature or advocacy groups do not count as "hard data".)

[squirrelitude]

I think the only *actual* problem is that you shouldn't offer kids food without OK'ing it with their parents. (Allergies, dental hygiene habits, etc.)

[zenala.livejournal.com]

Well, the kid obviously was able to say "no", and presumably if a child is old enough to be walking home from school by his or herself, he or she should be old enough to know not to accept food from anyone who isn't aware of any allergies and such (or don't take them seriously)--and this is much more likely to be well-meaning family members or teachers or the like. (and, as far as dental hygiene goes, one extra piece of candy in the afternoon isn't going to make or break the next dental visit...)

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

This is very frustrating to me. Is it now a crime to offer a child a piece of candy?

I live in this neighborhood. I want my kids to have a sense of community, and to know their neighbors. Not to have their interactions with friendly adults literally policed. I see this kind of paranoid reaction to normal behavior as a much more present danger to my children than the very low risk that they might encounter a stranger who wishes to harm them.

zenala, you are right about the rarity of these "stranger dangers":
there are only about 115 stereotypical kidnappings per year in the U.S.: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2007/01/800000_missing_kids_really.html

there has never been a real case of poisoning by candy: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether the offer was, "I have some candy right here. Do you want some?" or, "I have candy back at my house. Do you want to come with me to have some?"

[zenala.livejournal.com]

I'd think that if an offer of going to the man's house had been made, that would have been mentioned... Maybe not, but it seems like a strange detail to omit if it were true.

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

I see this kind of paranoid reaction to normal behavior as a much more present danger to my children than the very low risk that they might encounter a stranger who wishes to harm them.

Bravo.

[twisted-times.livejournal.com]

The vast majority of victims of rapes, sexual assaults, physical assaults and murders (attempted or successful) knew their attackers.

[zenala.livejournal.com]

"Talking to children while male"

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

OH CRAP I'VE DONE THAT

[ifotismeni]

this also seems unnecessary and alarmist to me, but i guess the principal is damned if she doesn't (especially if she doesn't) and damned if she does... i really hate that we've become a CYA world :/

[squirrelitude]

I'm gonna open a "Free Candy!" booth next to the bike path. :-)

- OR -

If you don't talk to your children about candy, they'll find out about it from friendly, harmless strangers on the bike path!

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Did the dog look like this?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

FTW.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

Oh good, someone posted the Greatest Internet Picture Ever.

[twilighttremolo.livejournal.com]

I wholeheartedly agree. It was probably nothing, but it was still an adult disregarding the cultural norm that adults don't approach children they don't know and offer them candy, and if I were a parent, I would appreciate the announcement even if it had no effect on what I felt comfortable letting my kids do.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

I might be a little concerned if one of my kids came home and told me someone had offered her candy on the bike path. I would not file a police report.

I don't think it's an appropriate use of my tax dollars to post extra police along the bike path because of this incident, nor do I think it is a good use of the school principal's time and resources to post an alarm to the entire community about it, and to take up kids' educational time with revisiting rules about Stranger Danger. The kid did the right thing, and probably there was no danger anyway.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

Seriously!!! I think many of us were taught Free Candy = Danger, Will Robinson.

[chaosdancer.livejournal.com]

Years ago, and completely at random, my mom had some kids from down the street knock on her door and ask if she had any candy. She always keeps some hard candy around for hypoglycemic attacks, so she gave them some. They kept coming back for years, them and other kids they told about the "candy lady" at the end of the street. Those kids are grown up now, but sometimes they visit her...all in all, a happy story.

Still, I wonder, if I'd been one of the parents of those kids and not knowing that the kids had basically knocked on the door and demanded the candy (because I doubt the kids would admit to that), I'd have freaked out and reported my mom to the police, or at the very least forbidden them to go back. I could easily see myself doing that, if I'd been the parent, and it would have been a shame because they had such a nice relationship over the years. But I'd have been nervous, at the very least.

It's a shame we have to think about stuff like that.

[ron_newman]

I can see both sides of this. But if this is paranoia, it isn't new. Back in the early 1960s as a kid, I was told not to accept candy from 'strangers'.

(Unless it was Halloween, of course.)

[cos]

Paranoia eventually caught up with Halloween, too, causing homemade treats to all be replaced with commercial individually wrapped candy.

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

My impression is, when you have children (and more specifically children of the age involved in this incident) you always err on the side of caution. There is sense of community and knowing your neighbors, but this is a random encounter which seemly occured outside of community and neighbors.

I don't see how the chain of events seems unreasonable; something obviously rattled the kid enough to tell his or her parents (I am not entirely sure my kids would have volunteered this information except under interrogation), parents notify police, police notifies principal, principal notifies school community, another parent notifies (online) community at large, general mayhem ensues.

Best case scenario, this guy has no clue involving societal norms regarding behavior towards a child walking alone; worst (probable) case here is the guy is Exposo the Clown.

[grateful1311.livejournal.com]

I agree. I do not think alerting parents to this incident was an overreaction at all. As a parent of a school-aged child, if I was NOT alerted and heard about it somewhere else I would have questioned why the community was not informed.

[chris l. abernathy (from livejournal.com)]

To all the parents saying they would like to be informed, informed about what? A guy passes a 5th grade kid on a bike path and offers him some candy, the kid says no, and everybody goes on their merry ways. What's so scary about that?

If the same thing happened to my son in our neighborhood I'd want to know if my kid said "no, thank you" instead of just no, but otherwise who cares. Are we really all so afraid of each other that a random friendly encounter requires a police report?