Friday, March 28, 2003 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
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Print viewDriver is placed on leave after taking girl to safety
The Associated Press
It was clear something was wrong when a 12-year-old girl started pounding on the doors of a King County Access van, begging for help and saying she didn't know a man standing nearby with his car door open.
"I'm a mother. My first thought was to get this baby out of this situation. Get her to a safe area," van-pool driver Marlene Wilson said yesterday.
After a company dispatcher assured her that taking the girl to a safe place would be appropriate, Wilson said she drove the child to the little girl's grandmother's house nearby in the South Seattle suburb of Renton.
Instead of getting praise from her managers at ATC Vancom, Wilson was placed on paid administrative leave Tuesday, the day after the incident, which the King County Sheriff's Office is investigating as an attempted abduction.
The reason, according to company managers, was that she did not promptly notify law-enforcement authorities or her employer.
"We wanted to know No. 1, if it was true and No. 2, why hadn't the police been called," said Rafeh Haidar, general manager of ATC Vancom, a transportation service King County Metro contracts with to provide van-pool service for seniors and the disabled.
Wilson said she didn't call 911 because she was focusing on getting the girl out of harm's way.
After a meeting with company managers yesterday, Wilson was told she could come back to work.
Haidar said managers commended her for taking swift action to help the girl, but told her she should have followed protocol and notified authorities immediately.
It all started Monday afternoon as the 12-year-old was walking home from Nelsen Middle School.
According to sheriff's investigators, a man in a black car approached the girl, rolled down his window and tried to lure her into the vehicle.
She told him she lived in a house on the street, and walked up to it hoping someone was home, but no one was, sheriff's spokesman Kevin Fagerstrom said.
That's when Wilson drove up and let the child into the van after the girl begged for help.
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