Second Child Abduction Attempt Reported In Algonquin School District
ALGONQUIN, Ill. (STMW) - Community Unit School District 300 in northwest suburban Algonquin is reminding parents to talk to their children about "the dangers of stranger interaction" after the second reported attempted child abduction within the district in the last two weeks.
Two Hispanic men in a vehicle described as a white van with no side windows reportedly approached a 13-year-old girl walking to her bus stop at about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday on Teton Parkway, just north of Glacier Parkway. The men asked the girl, a student at Algonquin Middle School, to get into the vehicle, according to a letter sent home this week with some District 300 students.
When the girl refused, telling them she wasn't supposed to talk to strangers, the driver became "more verbally forceful," according to the letter. The girl fled and told an adult, it said.
Algonquin police now are investigating the incident, District 300 Safety Officer Gary Chester said.
It is similar to an incident that occurred Tuesday, Jan. 3, in Carpentersville, just south of Tuesday's reported abduction attempt. In that incident, two Hispanic men in a white van had approached a boy, also an Algonquin Middle School student, at his bus stop in Carpentersville's Silverstone subdivision.
"There are some similarities there — the color, the fact it was a van and two Hispanic males. They can't say for sure it was connected," Chester said.
"We're focused on notifying our parents and making sure they talk to their kids about stranger interaction."
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