Police are puzzled as to what is spurring a recent wave of older
men following or approaching Gilroy youth.
Police are puzzled as to what is spurring a recent wave of older men following or approaching Gilroy youth.
Though one man has been arrested in connection with one of the 10 incidents since early August, police believe there could be four or more suspects still at large. While some residents are pining for the good old days, police and councilmen said the crime wave will pass as continued effort by police and increased community awareness will deter and thwart suspects from striking again.
“I think as reports get out, people will be more observant of their surroundings,” said Dion Bracco, a councilman and parent of a 13-year-old and a 22-year-old. “Parents will be watching around the schools, the police will get more reports, you’ll start seeing the patrol cars, and maybe (suspects will) move on to another city.”
In the meantime, police are left trying to piece together who is behind these suspicious incidents and why so many have cropped up during a three-month period. Violent crime – homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – has decreased from 2002 to 2006, from 7 to 5 incidents per 1,000 residents. Police do not have numbers yet for 2007 and do not track suspicious incidents, but police said the frequency of incidents is unusual and cannot be explained by one person’s activity.
“Right now, based on the descriptions, we don’t have anything to show that (the incidents are) linked,” Gillio said.
Four incidents involved a description of an older Hispanic man following or speaking to youth. In one stalking incident, a man in a white sedan followed two girls and approached one on three separate occasions. On Nov. 8, a man approached and touched a boy at Rucker Elementary School before driving off in a teal sedan. Another man showed up on a school campus Thursday, calling out to a girl at El Roble Elementary School before taking off on foot.
Police dismissed the notion that a rash of unsolved sexual assaults in the spring – four in three months – or the lack of arrests in August suspicious incidents made Gilroy a destination for sexual predators, stalkers or would-be kidnappers. Other cities, including Morgan Hill and San Jose, have also experienced an uptick in suspicious incidents and kidnappings, though not as pronounced, Gillio said.
“We haven’t been able to identify any contributing factors to why there is a sudden surge in this type of behavior,” he said.
The wave of incidents has left residents on edge. Some communities are organizing information sessions to educate area children about protecting against unwanted stranger attention.
Other parents are swearing not to let their children out in the front yards alone. Still other residents are left wishing for a simpler time.
“At the risk of sounding like my parents or grandparents, I look back fondly at the good ol’ days,” Keith Muraoka wrote in a letter to the editor. “I remember Garlic City when agriculture was the main economy, not outlet stores; when there was no northwest quadrant or southwest quadrant, for that matter; when you could count the number of signal lights on one hand.”
The recent surge in crime could have some positive effects, said Emma Lucas, assistant director a program at Community Solutions – a Morgan-Hill nonprofit that supports survivors of sexual assault and educates people on violence prevention.
While the overwhelming majority of victims of sexual assaults and violent crimes do not report the incident, the recent crime wave could remove stigmas that sometimes are associated with those incidents, she said.
“The awareness in the community is raised about the problem of abductions and kidnapping,” she said. “Hopefully, with that awareness, people are feeling more comfortable to come forward and report incidents.”
Police are hoping that the community awareness also gives them an edge on fighting crime. The sooner a person reports a crime, the sooner police can be dispatched to the scene and the more likely they will be able to make an arrest, Gillio said.
“We have a certain amount of officers,” he said. “We can’t be everywhere. The community is our eyes.”
