CINCINNATI -- Parents in Hyde Park Thursday received their third warning of potential predators attempting to entice children in less than a year, according to police.
An alert from Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church Preschool arrived in parents’ email inboxes Thursday morning. According to the email, three men in a small black SUV had attempted to lure a child inside along Observatory Avenue Wednesday night.
Katie Stewart, who has two children at the preschool, said the email made her nervous because of the number of families like hers in Hyde Park.
"This is a pretty safe area, and there’s a lot of little kids around here," she said. "I think definitely we need to have some conversations just to be really careful."
According to Sergeant Eric Franz of the Cincinnati Police Department, there were at least two more similar incidents reported in Hyde Park in 2016: One in which parents said a man exposed himself to two young girls and another in which a man attempted to lure Hyde Park School students into his van.
Sergeant Franz said parents should always talk to their children about “stranger danger” and, if they find themselves in a situation like this, take a picture of the vehicle and call 911.
