A parent's worst nightmare

There was an incident - an attempted abduction - at my children's new school last week.

Thankfully no children were harmed - I believe because they seem to have learned the right lessons about being safe, and because the adults who were supervising them were paying attention. Still, StraightMan and I both cannot help feeling that our children and our community just barely escaped the threat - Beanie tells me that it happened during her recess.

Here is what the city police department posted on FB:

School officials reported that an employee noticed two students looking into the wooded area between I-Nn and the sports fields of the school and, when questioned, the students stated that a male was trying to offer them candy while standing along the wooded property line of the school and I-Nn. When the school employee began walking towards the children, the male ran towards I-Nn and got into a blue van or truck and drove away west bound.

The person is described as a male with dark skin, short brown hair, wearing a dark t shirt, and carrying a fabric type draw string bag.

For whatever reasons, the details here - the van drove west bound, the man carried a fabric drawstring bag - made the story especially terrifying. All of a sudden, I could imagine that one of my children had been taken, screaming and thrashing in the bag while the truck sped across the state line. This has haunted me for the last two nights.

I hope that every chat I have had with my children about being safe stays with them. I hope that the adults who are supervising always pay attention. I hope whatever luck or blessing or grace that has carried them so far continues to do so.

I want to know what is being done to prevent this - and worse - from happening. We cannot feel relief that "nothing" happened because the fact is that something did.