On Wednesday, HISD issued a press release about actions taken by HISD in response to an attempted abduction of a student. Here’s an excerpt from the press release email* I received from HISD:
The principal of HISD’s Scarborough High School telephoned nearly 500 homes today to warn parents about an attempted abduction of a student on a city street.
Scarborough Principal Moses Diaz contacted 489 homes in minutes using the district’s new automatic phone messaging system to warn parents about a man who attempted to abduct a 9th grade student as she walked to school. (Audio of phone call is attached.)
Principal Diaz told parents that about 8:15 a.m. today, a Hispanic male driving a blue four-door Dodge truck attempted to abduct the girl from a street corner at Antoine and Libby.
“The man was between the ages of 25 to 30 years, 5-feet 6-inches tall with short black spiked hair with excessive acne on his face. He was wearing a royal blue button up shirt and blue jeans. The student who was involved is a 9th grader at Scarborough High School and was able to escape this attempted abduction and was not physically harmed,” Principal Diaz told parents.
The principal said HISD Police and Houston Police are investigating, and that extra police patrols have been added in the area.
The local television news outlets reported this news story the same day (KPRC-2, KHOU-11, KTRK-13, KRIV-26).
Strangely enough, Houston’s Leading Information Source didn’t run an actual story on the matter.
However, Chronicle education editor Jason Spencer, who whined recently on his Chron.com blog about HISD issuing press releases in an effort to gain favorable media coverage of HISD topics (shocking!), did mention the story on the same Chron.com blog yesterday, while pointing out that HISD’s press office issued a press release on the attempted abduction but did not issue a press release on a teaching assistant accused of sexually assaulting a student off campus.
We’ve long suspected that the Chronicle editor’s apparent animus towards HISD spokesman Terry Abbott adversely affects the Chronicle‘s coverage of HISD. The absence of any non-blog coverage of an attempted abduction — considered with these recent blog posts — lends further credence to the notion.
UPDATE: Lo and behold, as I was putting the finishing touches on this very blog post, Chron.com finally posted a news story about the abduction this morning! Better late than never, we suppose, although it certainly was late; maybe the Chron.com Froot Loop bureau should have helped out with this one! I have no idea if the story made it into this morning’s print editions.
* I asked to be added to HISD’s press emails some time ago, and unlike Mayor White’s press officials (who refuse to answer my emails, let alone add me to their email list), HISD was kind enough to add me to their release list. More public entities should be so accommodating of bloggers.
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