Authorities in California said the woman tried three times to lure the children into her car.
Berkeley police said a 36-year-old woman, who was arrested on Wednesday, October 5approached four different children between Aug. 29 and Sept. 20 in the Berkeley area, talking to the teenager in his yard and trying to lure three others into his car, according to a Thursday, Oct. 6, news release.
The first encounter with the woman occurred when she twice approached a 14-year-old boy who was “working in his yard” on Jefferson Avenue, police said, and tried to “shake his hand.”
About 30 minutes later on August 29 – in the same area of Berkeley – she was pulling the car alongside a 13-year-old girl while walking near Allston Way and McKinley Avenue, police said in a Sept. 23 public safety alert. She tried to persuade the girl to get inside.
“The teenager refused, continued walking and later told his parents about what happened,” the warning reads.
A little more than two weeks later, on Sept. 14, a woman tried to get a 15-year-old boy near Allston Way and Grant Street to get into her car, police said.
Almost a week later, on Sept. 20, a 12-year-old boy was riding a scooter on the sidewalk near Sacramento Avenue and Addison Street when “a car stopped in front of him,” police said.
According to police, the woman got out “of the car and tried to convince the boy to get inside.”
After the woman “came closer to the boy,” he “fled and hid in a nearby driveway,” police said.
A few minutes later, the boy “was back on the sidewalk,” according to police. The woman was still there and followed him in her car.
“Fortunately, the boy was able to run away from the suspect (in the opposite direction of traffic) and get away,” police said.
The woman was arrested outside the North Berkeley BART station on a “warrant for attempted kidnapping and three counts of child annoyance/depravity,” police said.
Berkeley is about 13 miles northeast of San Francisco.
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