Police say Indian Land incident was not a crime, but they had a suggestion for the public
Police in Lancaster County identified the man who spoke to a boy in Indian Land Sunday and said the man committed no crime and no charges will be filed.
Additionally, police urged residents to be responsible using social media. Some posts after the incident were wrong about who the man was, Lancaster Sheriff Barry Faile said in a statement Wednesday.
Some social media posts about the incident, not made by the sheriff’s deputies who were handling the investigation, claimed the person may have been a registered sex offender with the state of South Carolina or had a criminal background, Faile said.
Faile said those statements, from people not affiliated with the sheriff’s office, were not true. The man has no criminal record and is not a registered sex offender.
The boy, 12, was on a bicycle in the Walnut Creek neighborhood on Courtland Drive Sunday afternoon. The boy told police the man asked him to come with the man to play baseball.
The boy’s parents, as well as many others, reported the incident to Lancaster County deputies.
Police identified and spoke to the man Wednesday, Faile said in the statement.
“This incident caused a good bit of legitimate concern among area residents,” Faile said in a statement. “I am happy we got to the bottom of it. Lots of social media activity and communication among various HOA members occurred, which is a good thing. Residents should be aware of incidents that occur in their communities.”
Faile added that some reports on social media were wrong and that police should be the official source for information during investigations.
“Citizens with information about matters under investigation should report that information to us,” he said. “We have the resources to investigate these incidents and find the truth about what happened and who did it.”
The incident even spurred inquiries to York County Sheriff’s Office about a similar type car or person in the northern part of the county, said Cpl. Kim Morehouse, spokesperson for the York County Sheriff’s Office.
York County deputies and detectives checked all those inquiries and spoke to law enforcement agencies in surrounding jurisdictions and found there was nothing in York County that had any connection or similarity to the Indian Land incident, Morehouse said Wednesday.
Andrew Dys: 803-329-4065, @AndrewDysHerald