Police Chief: Delay in Notification was an Oversight

Residents have expressed concern over a delay in notification of an attempted child luring that occurred in the township Friday evening. 

On a , posted several days after the event, Ingrid asked: “Why were parents not alerted to this fact? Our police department needs to be more proactive in such a situation.” 

Momof3 agreed, writing: “ALL residents should have been notified.”

Upper Southampton Patch did receive a press release from the police department on Monday morning, but it was

A press release regarding the attempted luring was not received until Tuesday morning at 11:24 a.m., more than three days after the incident occurred.

Upper Southampton Chief of Police Ron MacPherson said it was simply an oversight that the information was not divulged in a more timely fashion. 

“First thing Monday morning Centennial School District and Our Lady of Good Counsel School were both notified,” he said. “The information should have been sent [to the press] at the same time.”

While he agreed that it is in the best interest to have the members of the community aware of such incidents, MacPherson said there can be pros and cons to releasing the details.

“You have to be careful because there can be copycats,” he said.

A similar incident did occur over the weekend; there was an .

However, MacPherson said he did not believe the incident was related, as the descriptions of the vehicle involved differed greatly.

MacPherson said he would be looking into the reasons behind the delayed release of information.