Posted at: 11/18/2009 11:17 PM
By: Dan Conradt

Abduction Attempt Sparks Lesson

(ABC 6 NEWS) -- Austin police are looking for a man who tried to lure an elementary school girl into his car yesterday afternoon.

On a Tuesday afternoon, a routine walk home from school wasn't very routine

"She said the vehicle pulled to the curb where she was standing, the driver waved to her," says Lt. John Mueller.

And when the stranger behind the wheel told her to get into the car.

"She did exactly the right thing, which was to yell no and she ran for what she knew to be a safe place," says Mueller.

"When the student yelled and started running away, the driver left," says Dewey Schara, Neveln Principal.

It's the kind of thing students have been told about for years. In Austin, it's a message that comes through a program the schools and the police department call "junior police".

"And every second grade student gets that ... What to do in certain situations, and one of those is if a stranger approaches you, what do you do?" asks Schara.

On the day after that "what if" became reality, that message was reinforced when Principal Dewey Schara and one of the school district's police liaison officers visited every classroom at Neveln Elementary.

"We first gave them the facts ... One of our students was approached by an adult, that adult did something inappropriate that they shouldn't have done," says Schara.

And then the officer reminded the kids of the rules of "stranger danger".

"He told me not to go up to someone's car that you don't know," says second grader Abbey Neve.

Abbey Neve is a second grader at Neveln Elementary School.

"Yell or scream something to draw attention to them to cause people to look," says Mueller.

"Say no, run away, yell for help, go someplace safe," says Schara.

And in this case, it worked.

"It just goes to show that of the preparation that schools do and law enforcement does to train our kids to be safe, when that incident happens, they perform," says Schara.

The girl describes the suspect as a white male about 20 years of age, with short brown hair and a reddish complexion or has acne.

He was driving a red sedan.

There are no suspects in the case.

If you have any information, you're asked to call Austin Police at 437-9400.