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“This isn’t exactly the same as the other luring incidents we’ve been hearing about in Bergen County,” Wood-Ridge Police Chief Joseph Rutigliano told CLIFFVIEW PILOT, “but it clearly was inappropriate behavior that scared these girls.”
Two of the youngsters — one 12 and the other 13 — were at the counter of the Hackensack Street store just after 3 o’clock yesterday when the man buying an ice cream tried talking with them, Rutigliano said.
“Did your boyfriend do that?” he said to one of the girls, pointing to a magic marker design on her hand.
He then touched her hand and she pulled away, the chief told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. The man continued talking to her, he said.
The clerk quickly moved the girls to his side of the counter and the stranger left — “a smart move,” the chief said.
But that wasn’t the end of the trouble.
In the parking lot of the store — which is next to the post office and a block from Wood-Ridge High school — the stranger approached a third girl.
“Damn!” he exclaimed in Spanish, Rutigliano said.
He then followed her into the store and tried talking to her.
“She wanted no part of it, and he eventually walked out,” the chief said.
He then asked someone for directions to Hackensack and walked that way, Rutigliano said.
Detectives have store surveillance video of the events and are taking other steps to identify the stranger — which CLIFFVIEW PILOT won’t disclose until after an arrest is made.
The man is described as:
- Hispanic;
- in his early 20s;
- wearing a New York Yankees hat, with curly hair sticking out back;
- a camoflauge jacket;
- long shorts
If you have information that could help police in this case, please call: (201) 939-0476
- YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Anxiety levels are rising amid reports of possible attempted lurings in Bergen County, including one early this morning in Fair Lawn in which neither two children, a witness nor police could say what exactly happened. This comes after two Lyndhurst boys yesterday made up a story about a man trying to lure them into his van. READ MORE….
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