Concern is growing over the mysterious man approaching Sykesville girls walking without supervision.
“It looks like he is building up nerve, and practicing until he can get up to the point where he acts out and does something more,” said Polly Franks of the National Coalition of Victims in Action, an organization consisting of victims of violent crime. “With children involved, I would go on that assumption until I found out otherwise.”
Franks? comments come as Sykesville police investigate an incident in which a man approached two middle school girls and offered them a ride at approximately 8:20 a.m. Tuesday near Central and Second avenues.
The suspect in this incident is nearly identical to one described as approaching two girls on May 9 and one girl on April 26.
In all three incidents, the girls walked to safety and notified authorities.
The suspicious man ? described as tan, 30 to 40 years old, heavyset, with light brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache ? was operating a “very clean, late model, dark blue, four-door compact vehicle, possibly with a Maryland Bay tag,” said Sheila Sauer, administrative assistant for Sykesville Police Chief John Williams.
“He?s never actually struck; he hasn?t victimized anyone yet. But he wants to,” said Robert Siciliano, a Boston-based personal security expert and author of “The Safety Minute,” which provides advise on being safe on the streets and at home. “Once he satisfies his urge, he?ll find that he?s not satisfied and wants to do it again. It?s just a matter of time,”
Siciliano said Sykesville?s mystery man might be out to “feel the waters.”
“Do not stop to talk,” Franks said.
Franks also said Sykesville adults should organize into “some sort of citizen patrol, watching children on corners and walking kids to school.”
