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Police Presence Heightened at Carrie E. Tompkins

CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. – Security was increased Wednesday at Carrie E. Tompkins Elementary School as Croton Police continued to investigate a report that an unidentified man dressed in all black approached a third-grade student Tuesday in the school.

The 9-year-old third-grader said the man was white with blonde hair, about 6-feet-tall, when compared to her father, and described him as wearing all black, including black shoes, shirt, pants, jacket and a black briefcase. Croton Police Detective Sgt. John Nikitopoulos was unable to offer details of the conversation that may have transpired between the girl and the unidentified man.

Although Croton Police said Tuesday the girl may have been offered candy by the man, Croton-Harmon School District Superintendent Edward Fuhrman said he was told by Croton Police that those reports were unconfirmed. Croton Police said Tuesday, that when the girl was interviewed she offered varying accounts of whether candy was involved in the incident.

"At this point, we're not sure if the candy was actually mentioned," said Nikitopoulos, Wednesday morning.

School officials and police said it isn't clear which entrance the man may have used to enter the building. There is a door near the third-grade wing of the school, where the girl said she was approached by the man, but school officials said that door is always locked from the outside. Fuhrman said it's possible someone inside the building opened the door for the individual, but officials have been unable to determine the point of entry.

Some parents have said the back door to the school, which is off of a secondary parking lot and playground, is consistently open. Fuhrman said all points of entry except the main entrance will now be locked for the entirety of the day.

"It's worrying obviously," said Loraina Harvey, the mother of a third-grade student. "The times that we live in, we can't ignore the fact that there are people out there who want to hurt our kids," she said.

"I feel that they're safe and I've never felt that they're unsafe," said Maria Slippen, president of the Carrie E. Tompkins PTA. "I would have liked to get reassurance more promptly, some communication from Dr. Fuhrman could have come out before school today," she said.

Other parents said they hoped it was just a confused father who may have lost his way in the school.

As of Wednesday morning, police said the girl is the only witness. Fuhrman said he is hoping other students who may have seen the incident will come forward.

Although the elementary school has cameras on the exterior of the building, Fuhrman said that as of Tuesday, officials had technical problems accessing the videos.

"Part of the problem we ran into was technical when we tried to retrieve some of the tape," said Fuhrman. "There were technical issues.”

"I can tell you that the cameras don't cover all the areas that you might want to look at, so that's one of the things we have to do a review about," Fuhrman said about a security review the district will try to perform. Fuhrman said he had plans to undertake a security review of the district's campuses during the summer break, before the incident occurred.

Fuhrman said it’s possible that the security technology in the schools may need to be upgraded.

Nikitopoulos said there would be heightened police presence around the elementary school at school start and dismissal times. "We'll be out in force, like we were this morning, when school gets out, checking the area," he said. At least three police cars were present at the building Wednesday afternoon, at dismissal.

After police received the report of the incident Tuesday afternoon about 2:45 p.m., patrolmen checked and were unable to locate anyone matching the description of the unidentified man.

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