Brockton mom wants man arrested for giving phone number to underage daughter
WickedLocal.com
ABINGTON – Two teen girls remain shaken nearly a week after a grown man slid them his telephone number and then stared at them from his car outside an Abington pizza shop on Friday.
Terrified, one of the girls called to tell her mother, Debbie Nihtila, about the incident and the panicked mom quickly picked up the girls and went looking around the neighborhood for the man, Nihtila said.
Furious, Nihtila filed a police report with the Abington Police Department demanding that cops take action against the man who, she said, acted inappropriately toward the minors.
Police followed up in the incident by calling the man, who told police he thought the girls were of legal age and apologized, said Abington Police Chief David Majenski.
Calling him a “knucklehead” who used poor judgment, Majenski said there was nothing police could do legally since the man broke no law.
But Nihtila, of Brockton, said the man’s actions were anything but innocent and have left her 14-year-old daughter terrified of leaving the house. Now the mom said she feels helpless and frustrated that the matter hadn’t been taken more seriously.
“There are men out there giving their name and number, fishing, trying to get children to call them,” Nihtila said. “If he was 15 trying to be friends with her, that’s something different. This was a man. It’s not OK.”
In many cases, adults who engage in subtle yet inappropriate behavior toward minors are careful not to cross the line of what is considered illegal, said Stacie Rumenap, president of Stop Child Predators, based in Washington, D.C.
“It’s a luring process,” she said. “It happens a lot online, but it happens in the real world as well. They push the boundary as much as possible, without crossing the line, and it’s frustrating because the police department’s hands are tied.”
In the meantime, she added, those adults leave a trail of confused young victims who feel uneasy knowing that such a person may be lurking about, she said.
In this case, she added, the two girls were savvy enough not only to ignore the man’s advances but to immediately inform a trusted adult.
“Unfortunately, what happens too often ... (is) kids are too embarrassed or too afraid to tell anybody, and they shoulder that by themselves,” she said.
And, in a far worse scenario, Nihtila said, a young girl could fall for the trap of a preying adult and get involved with someone they shouldn’t.
“That’s my fear, that people aren’t unaware of the strategies used by guys like that,” said Nihtila, who said she keeps an eye out for the man’s car.
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