Parents at elementary school claim stranger fed kids through fence during recess
By Tori Apodaca
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California (KMAX, KOVR) — Parents at a California elementary school are alarmed after they said their children told them that a man was feeding children through the fence during recess.
The Amador Unified School District could not confirm that detail. The district did send out a message to parents of Ione Elementary School the same day, confirming an incident occurred on campus that required assistance from police, but no details of what that incident was were given unless your child was involved.
The principal also said he was going to students’ classrooms to review safety with them.
Multiple parents recounted the same story and are concerned not just that a stranger was on campus, but also about what is being done to prevent it from happening again.
“She didn’t want to go to school the next day after it happened. She didn’t want to go to school for the week, actually,” said one father, whose daughter is in transitional kindergarten, who did not want to be identified. “She didn’t want another strange man walking up.”
He said his daughter did not eat any grapes the man had, but claimed she witnessed it happening to her classmates.
A mother who also wanted to remain anonymous said her daughter was one of the children who ate grapes from the man and she is now keeping her eyes out around town for the truck she said he was driving.
“Which made me sad because she’s just a little girl and she shouldn’t have to be thinking about that, but she is, and it’s real and it sucks,” said the mother.
It happened during recess on Friday, Sept. 26. The mom claims that the yard duty supervisor told the kids to ask the man to throw a ball that bounced over the fence back to them.
When they approached, that is when they accused him of giving them grapes.
Ione Police Chief John Alfred could not confirm that the man was feeding the children grapes or give details of whether there was any interaction at all with the children.
Alfred said detectives are in contact with the man. Unlike what some parents suspected, the chief of police said the man was not homeless, but he did not know if the man had a student who went to Ione Elementary.
Alfred said the man is being cooperative in the investigation, but at this point, it does not appear that anything criminal happened. They are still reviewing security footage from the campus.
Parents want to see privacy fences added around the play area, more cameras, patrols and more transparency from the district.
“It could have changed their lives and their family’s lives forever,” said the concerned mother.
CBS13 also reached out to the district, which had a different story from parents. The superintendent gave us this statement:
“On Friday, September 26, an unknown individual parked his vehicle in the Ione Elementary School parking lot and approached a fence adjacent to a student play area. The individual returned to his vehicle and left the parking lot. After school staff reported the interaction to the school office, Ione Police Department was contacted out of an abundance of caution for the safety of students. The Ione Police Department collaborated to conduct an investigation, which went into the weekend.”
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