SIOUX CITY, IA -
Sioux City Police are investigating three incidents of strangers approaching children Wednesday, urging parents to talk to their children about how potentially dangerous strangers can be.
"We had three incidents involving strangers approaching kids near or in the area of schools," said Sioux City Police Chief Doug Young. "That is very uncommon for something like this to happen."
Those three incidents happened all across Sioux City Wednesday.
At 7:00 AM at 11th & Jennings, 9:00 AM outside of Washington Elementary in Morningside, and at 1:00 PM near Roosevelt Elementary.
First, a silver Honda drove by a bus stop at 11th & Jennings, the white man inside made suspicious comments to a young girl.
Next at Washington Elementary, a white man in a white car drove up to a 10 year-old-boy while he was on his way to school and tried to lure him into the car, the boy successfully ignored him.
Finally, eight girls on the playground at Roosevelt Elementary school saw a dark skinned man in a white car motion toward them, yelling the name of one of the girls.
Fortunately none of the children were hurt or taken in during any of the incidents Wednesday.
"They did exactly what they should have done," said Young. "They didn't approach the vehicle, they reported the incidents to adults and that's what we want them to do."
Those incidents serve as a reminder to every parent and child of what to do if approached by a stranger.
"Encourage them to just simply walk away from the strangers without saying anything to them at all," said Chad Sheehan, Crime Prevention Officer with the Sioux City Police Department. "If the strangers are persistent and try to follow the children or even try to grab a child or anything like that, then we encourage the parents to encourage their children to yell, scream, yell for help, get attention, do everything they can to get away from that person."
Police warn: when it comes to stranger danger, you and your children can never be too careful.
"Not all strangers are bad," said Sheehan. "The problem is we don't know who the good ones or bad ones are, you can't tell by looking at someone whether they're a potential danger or not."
Police have stepped up patrols in all three areas, all while investigating to find out if the three incidents are related.
