At last night’s board of education meeting, a resident criticized the board for failing to widely circulate information about what he described as an attempted child abduction.
School officials responded immediately to the man’s concerns, and today have begun running an electronic ticker-style advisory on the district’s website. That advisory cautions parents to teach their children about approaching people in cars.
Police said today, however, the May 12 incident was investigated and it was determined that no attempted abduction had actually taken place.
On that date, a 13-year-old child was walking to school in the rain when a woman approached in a car and offered the child a ride, Lt. James Giuliano said today. When the child declined, the woman drove off. The incident was not reported to police until several hours later, at 9:30 p.m., after the child casually mentioned the incident to family members, Giuliano said.
There was a recent incident in neighboring Nutley where a man attempted to lure a girl into his car, Giuliano noted. Residents who heard about both incidents might be confusing the two, Giuliano said.
“I believe people heard about the Nutley job and are confusing the facts between the two cases,” Giuliano said.
He added if there had been a suspected incident of luring or abduction in Belleville, police would have informed the public immediately.
“Naturally we would have notified everyone. We would have had it all over the news,” he said.
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