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Police have released a composite sketch of the man they suspect lunged at a 9-year-old female Bubb Elementary School student this morning on the school’s campus.

Extra safety precautions were taken today at all Mountain View elementary and middle schools after a “stranger on the Bubb campus approached one of our students in a suspicious manner,” an official with the Mountain View Whisman School District said in a notice emailed to district parents.

The student was unharmed and the suspect’s intentions are still unclear.

On March 29, around 8:45 a.m., a call was placed to the Mountain View police reporting the incident.

The 9-year-old girl was returning to class from a trip to the bathroom, said Liz Wylie, the Mountain View Police Department’s public information officer. The girl saw the man — wearing gray jeans and a navy blue polo shirt — leaning up against a tether ball pole.

Wylie said that the man lunged at the girl when she came within 6 feet of him. The girl ran away and the man ran in the opposite direction. She last saw him heading toward the Bonita Avenue side of the campus.

“Despite an exhaustive search,” Wylie wrote in the report, “the man was not found.”

Police believe the man is white, in his 50s, with gray hair and is heavyset. The department is asking for anyone who believes they have seen the man to call the police department’s tip line: 903-3944.

Mountain View Whisman Superintendent Craig Goldman advised schools that no children should be allowed to be outside the classroom without an adult, that all faculty and school staff should be on heightened alert, and that children walking home from school should be advised to do so in pairs or groups. If a student planning to walk home cannot find a partner or group to walk with, he or she will be advised to use school phones to contact a parent or guardian, Goldman said in his email.

Notice of the incident was sent to the high school district and officials acted accordingly, officials with that district said.

Earlier in the day, the Voice received a number of unofficial tip emails, which noted that a man matching the Bubb suspect had been seen near St. Simon private school on Grant Road in Los Altos.

The Los Altos Police Department, however, has said that after conducting an investigation the man spotted by St. Simon is not the same man who was at Bubb.

Additionally, what appears to be an attempted kidnapping was also reported today in Los Altos Hills. The county sheriff has yet to return requests for information on that incident. However, at this time, it does not appear that the Los Altos Hills incident is related to the Bubb case.

This story will be updated as more details become available.

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  1. And a description of the suspect will never be forthcoming. Completely irresponsible on the part of the school district, the police and the Voice.

  2. The Los Altos Police provided it in a bulletin about a similar incident at St. Simon this morning:

    “White Male in his 50s, about 6 ft. tall, heavy set wearing navy blue polo and grey jeans at St. Simon’s school on Grant, male suspect looking through the fence. When they tried to make contact, he took off on a bike. After that, a suspect matching the same description was at Bubb School where he tried to grab a student.”

    And there was a separate incident too:

    “White Male in his 30s, with a brown goatee wearing a baseball cap; driving a new Ford 4-door pickup with paper plates 20-25 minutes ago, in Los Altos Hills suspect attempted to kidnap a student in front of a residence.”

  4. From the Los Altos Town Crier’s coverage, the St Simon’s incident appears to be nothing at all:
    “Capt. Andy Galea said that after investigation, the suspect was believed to be to be a cyclist waiting for friends.

    Mountain View and Los Altos police officers have determined that the incidents are unrelated.

    “It appears this time that there was no crime,” Galea said of the Los Altos incident.”

    I’m really hoping the Bubb incident was possibly a false alarm as a lot of these cases turn out to be.

  6. Wow, the school instituted the buddy system! So the solution is to have the kids watch each other. Two six year olds against a full grown man. I wonder who would win that one. How about parking a squad car on each campus every day. We are paying them enough.

  7. I’m subsidizing property taxes for white males in their 50s and this is how they pay me back!

    Bad enough that they refuse to support bond measures for our schools. Now there’s also this!

    [end satire]

  9. The sketch looks a lot like one of a man (just a little heavier set and older) that was on the Megan’s Law website about 2yrs ago. (I just looked and couldn’t find the picture anymore).

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