In the last few days, two men have called out to two different children in Maple Ridge, leading police to ask the men to call them and explain their actions.
Last Friday, June 12, at about 4:30 p.m., an 11-year-old boy was on Cook Avenue, just west of Laity Street, when a man in a green car called out to him. The boy reacted by running straight home and the man drove away.
The man was described as a white male in his 30s, with a short brown beard, no moustache, with a mark on one of his hands. The car is a mid- to late-2000 model, and is green with some tinted windows.
Then on Tuesday, June 16, between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., a nine-year-old girl heard a man call out to her in the 23500-block of 119th Avenue, near a community mail box. She, too, ran home.
That man was described as white male between 18 and 23 years old, about 5’9” with sandy blond hair, and wearing glasses. He was not associated to a vehicle.
“These two incidents do not appear to be linked, and police are looking for two different men,” said Const. Amanda Harnett. “Neither man approached the children, but it is unknown why they would have called out to them in the first place.
“Police are appealing to the men responsible for these incidents to simply call us so we can find out why these children felt threatened in their own community.”
Police are also looking for a South Asian man wearing a red turban and a grey beard, between 50 and 60 years old.
He was driving a newer model, black extended-cab pickup truck. Police say that about 6 p.m. on May 19, a man of that description, asked a young girl playing in the area of 228th Street and Ritchie Avenue, just behind Lougheed Highway, to get into his truck, but she ran to a neighbour’s home.