Arlington police warn about possible child predator after attempted abduction

A Mansfield ISD intermediate school is warning students about a possible child predator after police say he tried to lure a 10-year-old girl into his truck.

The young girl says she walking home from the bus stop in her South Arlington neighborhood Wednesday afternoon when she was approached by a stranger that scared her.

"I saw this white truck come over, and so I thought he was just driving by,” she explained.

But instead of driving by, the 10-year-old says the man stopped, rolled down his window and asked her if she needed a ride home.

"I said no my home's right here, and he asked me if I was homeless,” she recalled. “Then he asked me if I could go home with him so I'd have somewhere to stay. Then I just kind of walked off."

The girl’s other friends were just up the street. They had all left the bus stop just minutes earlier in the neighborhood near Matlock Road and Sublet.

"My dad tells me not to talk to people I don't know,” she said. “So I just tried to ignore him."

But as the girl continued to ignore the man, that's when she says he got angry.

"At the beginning, he was kind of nice,” she said. “And then he just started yelling at me."

The 10-year-old’s father, Patrick McCord, was on his way home from work when he got a text from her.

“She was crying upset and scared,” he recalled. “"And she said, ‘Daddy, where are you at? Can you hurry and get back.’"

Arlington Police stepped up patrols around the school and the area where the girl was approached. They are looking for a man in his 50s or 60s with a white beard in a white extended cab pick-up.

Cross Timbers Intermediate School sent a letter to parents explaining what happened and reminded families to discuss stranger danger.

“It just scares me to think that these people are just everywhere, just right down the street from me,” said McCord.

The 10-year-old hopes she can pass on her lesson learned to other kids.

“Just walk away,” she said.