It’s been a few days since Everett police investigated a report of an attempted abduction at my son’s school.
That’s time enough to look at a Web page where the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office lists registered sex offenders: www1.co. snohomish.wa.us/Departments/ Sheriff/Services/Sex_Offender/.
I followed directions, typed in my ZIP code, and specified wanting to see only information on Level 3 offenders, deemed at high risk of reoffending. I found plenty to worry about.
As of Tuesday, there were 19 men listed as Level 3 sex offenders living within a mile or two of my house, my office and my kid’s school. I read their sorry histories and their methods of predation.
It’s been long enough since Friday, when police were called to Immaculate Conception-Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, to wonder exactly what happened there. Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz said a girl told school officials that a man tried to grab her in the gym. Whatever happened, I’m glad police were called and parents were informed. Of course, I’m relieved no one was harmed.
Since Friday, my 8-year-old has had time to go zipping off on his scooter to a buddy’s house a block away. Sunday afternoon, I left him sitting by himself in Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo cafe, finishing a carton of chocolate milk, while I used the restroom.
Should I not let him walk a block in broad daylight? Is it OK, in a restaurant, to say, “I’ll be right back”? If 8 is too young, how old is old enough?
In February, a 13-year-old boy was standing with other kids at his bus stop in Parrish, Fla., when he was grabbed at gunpoint by a man in a pickup truck. The boy later escaped, and a suspect was arrested.
A month ago, a statewide Amber Alert was issued and a hunt was on for a blue van. The search began when a Discovery Elementary School student reported seeing a smaller child grabbed off the street in south Everett. Despite the report, no one called police to say a child was missing.
It could have happened, we all know that. Anything can happen, anywhere. Remember the shock of a gunman in an Amish schoolhouse last fall?
It’s been long enough since the incident at my son’s school that I’ve had time to seriously think about the freedoms I allow him. He loves to play outside. While some parents worry about their kids’ inactivity, I’m looking to see if we’re out of Band-Aids – again.
What was once normal parenting now seems somehow reckless. I’m not the lone voice questioning whether we’re doing kids a favor by instilling fear rather than independence. Here are a few current book titles asking the same question: “Worried All the Time,” “Paranoid Parenting” and “Perfect Madness: Motherhood in an Age of Anxiety.”
When I was little, we were supposed to go out and play. You could easily argue that it was much safer then. The Spokane of my childhood was a place straight out of “The Wonder Years.” Thinking about that, I suddenly recalled a name that hadn’t occurred to me in decades: Candy Rogers.
A 9-year-old Girl Scout, Candy Rogers went missing in Spokane in 1959. I remember my parents talking about it, all hush-hush, when they thought I couldn’t hear. To me, the name became code for something evil I didn’t understand.
At the Spokane Police Department on Tuesday, Cpl. Tom Lee said by e-mail that he, too, was growing up in Spokane at the time. It was “very frightening – more for my parents,” he said.
Candy Rogers disappeared March 7, 1959. “Her body was found about three days later outside the city. The case was never solved,” Lee said. A detective still follows up on any tips. “We get one every year or so,” he said.
There have always been dangerous people. There haven’t always been round-the-clock news reports or Web sites pinpointing where dangerous people live.
I want my child to be careful, but confident. I want him protected, not overprotected.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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