A stranger approaching kids has a Central Gardens neighborhood on high alert.
Neighbors said the news is spreading door to door.
A man in his mid-50s with grey hair and a grey beard driving a silver Volkswagen sedan pulled up to two homes on Vinton Avenue last Sunday.
According to parents, he tried luring their boys who were playing in the front yard to get in the car with him.
The children’s’ parents called police, and since then, officers have beefed up patrols in the area.
Police think they know where the man lives, but no arrests have been made.
But the story does not end there.
“There was a car going really slowly up and down the street,” says Kacky Walton, who lives in the neighborhood.
Walton says the man has been back in the neighborhood several times driving in the same car and slowing down at certain houses.
Walton says when he parked outside her neighbor’s home, she spoke to him.
“And he said, ‘I just think this is a really cool block and I just want to see about getting a place here.’ I said, ‘I don’t know about any places for sale,'” said Walton.
Walton said the man was spotted on Carr Avenue early Saturday morning.
Walton said she does not know what the man wants.
The community is taking extra precaution to keep the littles ones safe.
One neighbor said “you have to, especially down here.”