A 19-year-old man has been arrested after allegedly attempting to lure three children away from their neighborhood in Baltimore County on Monday, Dec. 8.
Police say Cameron Keelan, 19, has been charged with attempted kidnapping and is being held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center, according to a statement from the Baltimore County Police Department.
Officers were called to Edgedale Road on Thursday, Dec. 4, after a report of a “suspicious person,” police said.
According to investigators, a man approached three young children in the area and tried to convince them to leave with him.
“Preliminary investigation revealed that a male subject approached three young children in the area and attempted to persuade them to follow him away from the location,” police said.
A woman who identified herself as the mother of two of the children told Fox 45 that the encounter happened in the Towson, Md., area.
“He came up and told my children that their parents weren’t home, and they needed to come with him,” she said. The mother requested anonymity to protect her children’s identities.
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She added that her son said the man came very close, though did not make physical contact. Her husband rushed outside after hearing the children banging on the door and chased the man away.
“My son said he got close to him, but he didn’t touch him. But he got close enough to him that he could grab him,” she recalled.
The mother said her children had noticed the man in the area before. “The kids said they’d seen him a few times and they saw him at the bus stop,” she said. “I’m happy that he got caught, because what if I really wasn’t home and my kids didn’t know stranger danger?”
