Incident Wasn’T Attempted Abduction
An incident feared to be the second attempted child abduction in as many days turned out to be a simple case of a man asking for directions, Spokane police said Tuesday.
On Sunday, police received a report of a suspicious man driving around in the 2000 block of East Fifth. The driver stopped several times to talk with children in the area and winked at one small girl, witnesses said.
Another young girl was in the man’s car and appeared ill-at-ease, a resident of the area said.
A resident reported the incident to police, who issued a warning to residents Monday.
The driver came forward Tuesday after seeing news accounts of the incident and told police that he was the person who was the subject of the warning.
He told a detective he was in the neighborhood looking for a friend’s house and stopped to ask several people for directions.
Police verified his account and determined that the girl in the car with him at the time is his daughter, a detective said.
Detectives are still investigating another attempted abduction reported to them Saturday.
In that case, a 14-year-old girl told police a white man with gray hair and a mustache, possibly in his 40s, tried to pull her into a car near Third and Altamont.
Witnesses said the man was driving a blue-over-gray 1990s model Chevrolet Blazer.
Anyone with information on that case is asked to call Crime Check at 456-2233.