Stranger Danger

For several weeks School District 25 has had reports of strange activity around our elementary schools. Some had a man taking pictures of kids. Some had strange cars following kids home, and one was reported a white van failed in its attempt to grab a girl as she was walking. Wednesday morning a man broke into a home by Indian HIlls and knew where the 6 yo girl was sleeping, grabbed her - she woke up as he was leaving the house and she screamed, waking her parents. He made it out of the house with her, but she was squirming and he decided he'd never make it with her so he just left her outside and took off. 


Seeing as I was idiotic enough to post our schedule on my public blog (although it didn't have many concrete details) and that the Ellie is the same age as the little girl was I think I need to be a little more prudent in my internet safety.  I can't say whether this kidnapping had anything to do with a blog; but this year my friend Evelyn had her home broken into and the police are sure the thief was tracking her whereabouts and schedule through her public blog.  So, what can you do?

On facebook my friend Katy, who lives in Texas, commented that it's funny this is such a big news in Pocatello's bubble because this happened every day in Houston.  Sometimes it is nice to live in a bubble - but not when you think things like this can never happen. That's the bad part, is you leave yourself open to more risk in a bubble and you're not as careful as you would be, say if you lived in Houston :-) !


So I think this is a good idea, as well as having a stranger danger lesson with Ellie.  We've tried to teach her what to do if a bad guy comes near her but her answer is always, "I would kick his butt with my karate moves, mom.  Don't worry!"  Sometimes it's hard to live in cartoon land.  Or maybe we're doing Ellie a disservice when we're rough housing and we let her win or think she is stronger than she really is.  All I know is this will be one interesting FHE on Monday!


p.s. What especially didn't help was reading an associated story last night online about the rash of kidnappings in Pocatello from 79 to 82 when four girls were kidnapped, a few of them exactly like this one and none of them were ever apprehended - and only 3 of the 4 bodies were ever found.  Someone commented that maybe it was the SAME person come back 30 years later!!  So of course I was all sorts of worked up and was NOT going to be able to fall asleep until D came home from work (It was a high school football night so I didn't see him until about 1 am). It was a late night.