Reports of white pickups increase

Three days after police told residents to be on the look out for a kidnapping suspect driving a white pickup who attempted to snatch three women off of streets in the west and southwest valley, reports of white pickups were coming in from all over.

But none led to arrests.

On Friday, there were three reports of three suspicious incidents involving white pickups. None matched the description of the suspect. And each of the reports was made by children.

Authorities, however, were investigating the incidents, said Capt. Jim Dillon of the robbery-homicide unit.

The Metropolitan Police Department first released information on the kidnapping attempts Tuesday. Police were looking for a man 35 to 45 with a Spanish accent and driving a midsize white pickup. The incidents happened April 1 and 4 and on Monday. In two of the cases a gun was shown.

The victims, two teen girls and a 35-year-old woman, were all able to get away.

The latest three incidents all happened Friday morning.

A white pickup with a camper shell, approached a 12-year-old girl and a man told her to get in the truck in the 5700 block of Eagle Claw Avenue, in the north valley near Jones Boulevard and the Las Vegas Beltway, police said. The girl was able to get away and police were called.

Police were called about an hour later to Tropicana Avenue and Decatur Boulevard, where a Sawyer Middle School girl said a man in a white pickup tried to get her into the truck.

She ran and told school officials, who told police.

The white pickup she described was a U-Haul vehicle and did not fit the description of the original pickup, police said.

At this point police don't believe the Friday incidents are related to the earlier reports of attempted kidnappings, Dillon said. The descriptions of the two pickups do not match and no gun was produced in any of the Friday incidents, he said.

Friday's incidents could be the work of copy cats, he said.

"There's a heightened awareness out there and people are very concerned," he said. "We're getting a lot of calls on white trucks and we are checking them all out. This case is a top priority investigation in robbery-homicide."

The third incident occurred in Henderson about 8:40 a.m. in the 1700 block of Baja Lane, near Horizon Ridge Parkway and Arroyo Grande Boulevard, said Todd Rasmussen, spokesman for the Henderson Police Department.

A 9-year-old boy was taking out the trash when he saw a white pickup with two older men and a woman in it, Rasmussen said.

The boy told police someone in the truck was waving for him, as if to encourage him to go toward the vehicle. The boy ran inside and told his mother who took him in a car and canvassed the neighborhood for the pickup.

They soon found what they believed was the pickup and called police.

Police do not believe it was the same pickup the boy saw or if it was, there may have been a misunderstanding, Rasmussen said. A detective has been assigned to investigate because of the nature of the valleywide threat but it is being treated as a suspicious incident, Rasmussen said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 385-5555.