The following notice was received this morning in a long email thread which is beginning to circulate in our area:
To: All Ambush Parents:
I wanted to make everyone aware of a situation that took place at soccer practice on Saturday, March 22nd at the North Park in Alpharetta.
While our U12 team was practicing on the turf field, the younger siblings were playing around the stands and bathroom area much like they normally do. Our younger daughter was playing “hide and go seek” and was hiding behind a trash can when she noticed an older man staring at her from his car in the parking lot. This man was in his mid 50’s and was not in a parking space but was pulled up sideways watching them play. The man was sitting with the car door open and his legs outside the door. Our daughter said the man was only wearing a towel around his neck and took off his sunglasses while he was staring at her. She said he had his legs spread and was “scratching his private parts.”
Fortunately, she did NOT get near this man but went to the parents and informed them of what was going on. When the parents realized what she was trying to tell them, they quickly reacted. One of the parents approached the car and saw exactly what was going on. She immediately called the police.
The police took about 15 minutes to arrive. We were all vey disappointed by the reaction of the officer. Even though we had a license plate number, eye witness account and very disturbed children, the officer said there really wasn’t anything he could do. He never even bothered to get out of his car to talk to us. He informed us that the license plate would probably come up expired, the man probably wasn’t a registered sex offender because most are not, etc,. etc, etc. The officer said that we should have not approached the man, rather just called the police so he could be caught in the act or we could have detained him. Not quite the answers that I expected we would receive.
The car was an older black Mitsubishi Eclipse with a loud exhaust. License plate # ATD-9438. The pervert was a white male, medium build in his mid 50’s with facial hair.
We all let our children play when we are at practice or watching games. Please take this notice as first hand experience that sexual predators are present everywhere! Fortunately, nothing worse happened. This could have easily been an abduction and we would have never known our daughter was gone.
We have taken this experience to solidify with our children why they should stay away from strangers and why we don’t let them roam around by themselves.
A special thanks to Suzanne Bailey and the other parents for quickly reacting.
-John Salvador
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