Carson City Deputy Bill Abbott leads an unidentified man away after he cursed at two teens in the Eagle Station Plaza and then hid from police in a field to the East of the parking lot. Photo by Brian Corley
A Carson City man was arrested Thursday for allegedly yelling vulgarities at two boys in a parking lot, but deputies say he doesn't appear to be the suspect who followed two 9-year-old boys on Monday.
Carson City sheriff's deputies have been on heightened alert since the 9-year-olds were approached in separate incidents that afternoon by a man in a gold car.
The cases don't appear to be connected, deputies said.
"Based upon the information we have presently, this does not appear to be related to Monday's incident, but we don't want to rule anything out," said Scott Burau, chief deputy with the Carson City Sheriff's Department. "There were sexual overtones in the comments that he made (Thursday) which caused concern that this individual may have been involved in Monday's incident. If these were inadvertent comments on his part, they're pretty stupid as far as I'm concerned."
Larry Kruger, 53, of the 3200 block of Austin Lane in Carson City, was booked into Carson City Jail on two misdemeanor counts of annoying a minor. His bail is set at $1,000.
The mother of one of the victim's Thursday said her 14-year-old son and his 13-year-old friend were riding their bikes in the Raley's parking lot in South Carson when they came across Kruger, who made a comment to them about riding their bikes on the sidewalk.
When the boys went into a bike shop, the man allegedly followed them inside.
"That really freaked them out, so they left and went across the street to my mother's house," the woman said.
After telling the grandmother what had happened, the boys decided to ride around the backside of Raley's to avoid the man, and go back to the bike shop. When they got to the front parking lot, Kruger snuck up on them by ducking behind cars and then called them to come over, the 14-year-old said.
"He was saying, 'Come here, come here,' like you call a dog, but he was looking at us. Then he came out from behind the car and that's when he started saying stuff," the boy said.
Nicole Millard was working in Espressos to Go and witnessed the incident.
"He was just yelling all of these obscenities at them. Really disgusting things he shouldn't have been saying," she said. "He was really angry about something. Everyone in the parking lot heard him."
The boys left and by that time the grandmother had called her daughter and told her what had happened.
"I just had a talk with all my kids this morning about staying away from strangers, not getting into anyone's car," she said.
The mother said she located the boys on Koontz Road, and they told her the details of the incident. She sent them home and went to the parking lot.
"I wanted to find this guy and tell him not to say anything like that to anyone or he was going to jail," she said.
The mother found him in Eagle Station by a distinctive bush-type hat he was wearing and a clothing description the boys had given her.
"But he looked weird and he was sitting alone and I wasn't about to go up to him, so I asked the bartender if she knew him and told her what happened," the mother said. The bartender asked the man if he had followed the boys into the bike shop.
"He said, 'I don't know' and she told him, 'You better think because the police are on the way,'" the mother said.
Outside the bar, she watched as he took off his hat and top shirt and threw them into a dark blue Ford Taurus parked in the back of the building.
At that point, a bystander who had been told about the incident pulled up in his truck and ordered Kruger not to leave.
"Then (Kruger) just took off running," the mother said.
Deputies found Kruger crouched behind sagebrush in a nearby field and took him into custody.
In Monday's incident, a 9-year-old boy was riding his scooter along Cortez Street near Seeliger School when a man in a gold car sexually propositioned him and then threatened to hurt him when the boy refused to get in the car. The child went home and his parents called police.
Another 9-year-old boy was walking near Robinson and Saliman streets when he was followed by a man in a newer, gold metallic two-door sedan with black seats.
"The boy said the car followed him home and at one point the man said 'I'm watching you,'" Burau said.
"This description certainly is very similar to the first reported incident. Both occurred last Monday within a 15- to 20-minute time span."
Based on the Carson City scare, the Douglas County Sheriff's Department on Thursday increased patrols of their schools and broadcast a description.
"There's many times that adults can protect themselves with their size and intelligence, whereas little guys can't, so anything we can do extra we are going to do," said Douglas Sgt. Lance Modispacher.
"We don't mind telling either that between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. there is double patrol on because of change of shift," he warned.
The man in Monday's incident is described as a white male adult, medium build with a goatee or moustache. He was driving a gold sedan, possibly a Saturn. Anyone with information is asked to call the Carson City Sheriff's Department at 887-2020 ext. 1400.
