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Police investigate suspicious stranger
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The Roscommon County Sheriff’s Department is reminding parents and children to beware of strangers after a recent incident at a Roscommon school bus stop.
The department received a complaint Oct. 13 after a parent observed a man approach a group of students waiting to board a school bus. According to a press release, children at a bus stop in the village were approached by a man with brown “scraggly” hair driving a red 1990’s model station wagon. Sheriff’s deputies received a complaint about the man from a concerned parent and a citizen after the incident occurred at about 7:45 a.m.
The complainants reported an unkempt man, possibly in his mid-40’s, pulled up to a bus stop in possibly a Ford Escort and started to unroll the passenger window as if to make contact with the children. The children were apparently startled by the vehicle’s approach and the suspect’s attempted contact. When a parent stepped forward from a nearby tree, the suspect vehicle quickly sped away, turning south onto Wheeler Road. The parent said he did not think the suspect knew an adult was present at the bus stop and told police he felt the situation deserved police attention.
Several officers responded to the scene, but were unable to locate the suspect or the vehicle. The sheriff’s department is asking parents to remind their children about what to do if a stranger attempts to make contact and requests citizens to watch for suspicious activity similar to the complaint.
The sheriff’s department continues to investigate the incident.
‘Get away, yell and tell an adult’
Roscommon County Sheriff’s Deputy and School Liaison Officer Jennifer Marshall runs the RADKids (Resisting Aggression Defensively) program.
She said she teaches children to never approach a stranger and to stay together if they are already in a group. She said she teaches that good strangers would not ask children for help and if a child is grabbed, to get away, yell and go tell an adult.
The RADKids website is webspawner.com/users/safesecure/index.html.
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©The Houghton Lake Resorter 2005
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