Woman tried luring kids to her car 3 separate times and followed 1, CA police say
A woman is accused of trying to lure children into her car on three separate occasions, California authorities said.
Berkeley police said the 36-year-old woman, who was arrested on Wednesday, Oct. 5, approached four different children from Aug. 29 to Sept. 20 in a Berkeley neighborhood, talking to a teen in his front yard and trying to entice three others into her car, according to a Thursday, Oct. 6, news alert.
The first encounter with the woman came when she twice approached a 14-year-old boy who was “working on his front yard” on Jefferson Avenue, police said, and tried to “shake his hand.”
About 30 minutes later on Aug. 29 — in the same area of Berkeley — she pulled her car alongside a 13-year-old girl walking near Allston Way and McKinley Avenue, police said in a Sept. 23 community safety alert. She tried to convince the girl to get inside.
“The teen refused, kept walking and later told her parents about what happened,” according to the alert.
A little more than two weeks later, on Sept. 14, the woman tried to persuade a 15-year-old boy near Allston Way and Grant Street to get into her car, police said.
Nearly a week later, on Sept. 20, while a 12-year-old boy was riding his scooter on the sidewalk near Sacramento Avenue and Addison Street, “a car stopped in front of him,” police said.
The woman stepped “out of the car and tried to convince the boy to get inside,” according to police.
Once the woman “came closer to the boy,” he “ran away and hid in a nearby driveway,” police said.
After a few minutes, the boy “walked back out to the sidewalk,” police said. The woman was still there and began to follow him in her car.
“Thankfully, the boy was able to run away from the suspect (in the opposite direction of traffic) and escape,” police said.
The woman was arrested near the North Berkeley BART Station, on a “warrant for attempted kidnapping and three counts of annoying/molesting a child,” according to police.
Berkeley is about 13 miles northeast of San Francisco.
This story was originally published October 7, 2022 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Woman tried luring kids to her car 3 separate times and followed 1, CA police say."
