A Maryville Department of Public Safety warning issued to local schools and news media regarding a Nov. 4 incident, which may have been an attempted child abduction, was distributed days late due to a communications failure within the department, MDPS Director Keith Wood said this week.
Wood, who telephoned the Maryville Daily Forum to explain the gaffe, said a call to the department regarding the incident from the family of the 8-year-old girl, involved was not "handled appropriately." He said a "a breakdown in communication" prevented the advisory from "going out immediately."
The parents, Wood said, called police the afternoon of Nov. 4 after their daughter returned from school. According to the subsequent advisory, issued six days later, the girl was walking to her bus stop that morning when a man standing near the door of a gray or blue pick-up truck asked her if she needed a ride.
According to the release, the child ran away after being accosted, and the suspect left the scene. The man was described as a slender, clean-shaven caucasian male wearing blue jeans, a button-up red shirt and a red baseball cap. There have been no further developments in the case.
"The big picture is that we were about six days late on that," Wood told The Daily Forum Monday. "We don't accept the fact that it happened, and we don't take it lightly." He said the matter was being addressed internally.
"We fell short of where we should have been, and we have taken action to see that it won't happen again," said Wood, who added that he was unaware of the incident until Nov. 10, when the department started to get "rumblings off the street."
"At that point, we investigated the matter and took immediate action to issue the advisory," he said.
City Matt LeCerf said Tuesday he was aware of the incident, and that the city is trying to use it as an opportunity to "improve the effectiveness of our people in their positions."
City Hall, he said, has a responsibility in such cases to "err on the side of caution" while making the safety of Maryville's citizens its top priority.
LeCerf said he understood that the delay resulted from the failure of a Public Safety staffer to move the initial report through proper channels.
"I think we are using this as a learning tool," he said.
