Two men eyed each other with suspicion as a 3-year-old girl sobbed between them.
One was a stranger who had seen the child alone and perilously close to a busy Independence, Mo., street. Worried about her safety, he stepped in to protect her.The other was the boyfriend of the child's mother. He was late picking her up at her bus stop and, seeing her with the stranger, thought she was being abducted.
That scene Wednesday afternoon captured the thickening atmosphere of anxiety about child snatching that has settled over Kansas City.
The Independence child was not in danger of being kidnapped. But coming after three other reports of threats to area children, tension is running high.
"I treat my children just like a fine piece of china," said Joy West-Spearman, chairwoman of the Chick Elementary School Advisory Committee in Kansas City. "It scares me to think of some of the things now going on. There are some sick people out there and they prey on the weak and the young."
Unnerved by the kidnapping and murder cases of Polly Klaas in California, then Cassidy Senter and Angie Marie Housman in St. Louis, parents, schools and police emphasize that a child's safety should never be taken for granted.
West-Spearman, like other parents across the metropolitan area, has been reminding her children of the rules of safety and dealing with strangers. Schools also are redoubling their efforts in the wake of recent events.
Elementary teachers in the Independence School District are reminding students of safety rules, said Assistant Superintendent David Rock. Parents of 3- and 4-year-olds also are expected to meet their children at the bus stop.
The Fort Osage School District has begun holding special safety assemblies for all students from kindergarten to sixth grade and sending safety checklists home with them.
"With all the reports out there and kids hearing it from TV, you have kind of a frantic, emotional approach from some parents," Assistant Superintendent Carol Marcks said.
Perhaps the mood of the times was best expressed at the Metcalf South Shopping Center in Overland Park, Kan., where a free child photograph and security program offered by the Lost Child Network was so swamped last weekend that it ran out of film and had to buy more.
Kansas City police emphasize that no serial kidnapper is known to be out there and no dramatic surge in abductions.