Incident reported to law enforcement
The Haldane superintendent said that a student on Tuesday (Oct. 31) reported that a stranger had stopped at their bus stop on Route 9 in Garrison and offered to drive them to school.
Superintendent Philip Benante said in a note to parents that a white male driving a dark-colored sedan pulled over near Hummingbird Lane, near the former Garrison Golf Course, where the student was waiting. When the student declined his offer, the driver continued southbound on Route 9.
Benante said the incident was reported to law enforcement. “Situations such as these serve as a reminder to reinforce safety measures with your children, including the importance of not engaging with strangers and how to seek help if they sense they are in an unsafe environment,” he said in a statement.
The incident was reminiscent of a report in March 2019 by the mother of two fifth-grade students at the Garrison School who said a younger man who appeared to be Asian driving an older, black, four-door sedan on Route 9 stopped and told her sons to get into his car after they had exited the bus near Snake Hill Road, which is also near the former golf course. She reported the incident to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department.
The woman said, according to her children, the man stopped his car, rolled down his window and yelled for the students to come over to the car and get in. They instead ran up the driveway. The vehicle apparently had been in a line of southbound cars waiting behind the bus while it stopped to drop off the students.
