KATY, Texas – Katy ISD is warning parents after two cases of stranger danger were reported on the same day this week.
The first incident happened at 3:50pm Wednesday. Katy ISD said three elementary school students -- ages 9 and 10 -- were walking home from school on Falcon Landing Blvd. when they passed a white van with a sign that read 'Mowing' on it. The kids said a black man with a dark complexion, balding/short hair and an accent told the students to get inside the van because he was a friend of their parents, who sent him to pick them up.
The district said one of the students screamed and ran home.
The second incident happened about 30 minutes later when two male elementary students were walking home in the 3400 block of Fry Road when a white van, possibly with multi-color day care markings, pulled up next to them. The kids say the driver, a white male, told them to get in the van and he would give them a ride home.
The students refused and ran home.
The incidents have parents in the area worried.
"It's scary. Very scary," said parent Lyndsay Vollmar. "I have two boys and my older one, I tell him, you always hold your brother's hand when we walk home and you never let him out of your sight and scream if anyone talks to you."
"It's a different world we live in," parent Mary Thompson said. "I train my children. I train them to recognize that that is a danger and I trained them to run or fight."
If you have any information in these cases, you are asked to call Katy ISD police at 281-237-4000.