WESTFIELD – Westfield Police Capt. Michael McCabe has posted a reassuring message to Facebook after a recent posting by a resident on the popular social networking site may have raised unwarranted fears in the city.
McCabe urged that residents immediately call police if they encounter a suspicious person but warned residents “not to embellish story lines as it may result in creating unwarranted panic where knowledge is all that is necessary.”
The issue began with a Facebook posting warning women of the city about a possible sexual offender which received widespread attention and was seen by more than 2,000 subscribers to the site.
A Bates Road resident called city police Friday evening to report a troubling incident at a tag sale she had staged at her home and Officer Paul Pellan responded.
Pellan reports the caller said that a male party in his 50’s had been shopping at her tag sale on Thursday and returned late Friday as she was ending her tag sale for the day.
The complainant told the officer that the man asked for her phone number, asked when she was home and said “let me make you happy” before he grasped her arm “in a flirting manner”, Pellan reports. The woman also told Pellan that the man had offered her four-year-old son a ride in his green minivan.
While a formal incident report was not filed, the resident subsequently posted a warning on Facebook in which she said she was making the posting because she became concerned after hearing of two incidents “just like mine.”
In her post the woman said that she had heard of an incident in which a woman who had been jogging “in the Highland Ave Stanley park (sic) area” when “a van pulled up and tried to pull her in.”
Det. Roxanne Bradley, who deals with many of the sexually oriented incidents investigated by the department, said in a recent interview that she knows of no such incident.
She said that the closest incident that she can find in police records occurred months ago when a female jogger on Loomis Street said that the operator of a white van had made hand gestures at her which she interpreted as threatening.
Bradley said that she spoke with the woman who posted the online warning a few days ago and was told that the woman’s boyfriend had told her that a co-worker had said that somebody tried to pull her into a van while she was jogging. The woman also made a vague mention of an incident near Highland Avenue but nothing relevant was found in police reports.
Bradley said that the woman apologized for posting that the man she encountered “is definitely a rapest (sic) or a sex offender” saying that she was upset at the time and got “a really bad vibe” from the man.
The situation became clearer on Wednesday when a Valley View Drive resident called a community policing officer to report that the operator of a green minivan appeared to be taking inordinate interest in his teenaged daughter as she and a friend were walking on Crane Avenue.
Officer Kevin Bard responded to speak with the caller and reports that the girl said that she and her friend saw a man in a van who appeared to be asleep as they were walking but, as they passed the van, the operator started the engine and paced them making her so uncomfortable that she called her father and asked him to come get them.
Armed with the registration number of the minivan, Bard was able to find it and the man operating it.
The operator, he found, was a man who spoke limited English but he was able to speak with him with the help of his son.
Bard found that the man, a 63-year-old West Springfield resident, acknowledged that he had been at the tag sale but denied saying what he had been reported to have said.
He said that he had seen the girls previously and has said “Hi” to them. He said he did not want them to be afraid of him and also said that he wanted to practice his English.
Bard said that he firmly advised the man that he has made all the residents he has interacted with uncomfortable and advised him strongly to cease his behavior.
Bard also advised the man of the possible severe consequences of any untoward activities.
Bradley said that it is possible that some of the man’s comments to the original complainant could have been “old school” attempts at compliments which have been misinterpreted.
She said it is also possible that a motorist slowly and carefully pulling away from a parking space could be misinterpreted, by teen-aged girls sensitized by an alarmist posting, as a motorist following and pacing them.
But, she stressed, since both incidents could also have less benign interpretations and since the man identified has been involved in two questionable incidents it is necessary and prudent to pay attention to him.
Bradley pointed out that the man is not known to have committed any crime but said that he is nonetheless troubling.
She said that the man has been found to use two very dissimilar names but no record of wrongdoing has been found.
However, she said that the man had been told explicitly that police will be watching so, if he does indeed have any evil intent, he is unlikely to act on it.
And, she said, she will “keep an eye on him” in the future.
