Dude - we had a similar incident where we live. A man tried to talk my son's friend and his sister into walking over to his vehicle he'd parked in our cul-de-sac. He did not see the children's mother behind him walking towards her children. When the kids started yelling, the man took off in his car without bothering to close the passenger door he'd opened.
We called the police, it was broadcast on the local news, and the man was eventually arrested trying to do the same thing in another part of town. He was a registered offender. The police really do need to know, because it is the only way they can track incidences of offenders who travel about to different areas or to build a case against someone they're watching.
We still allowed our kids to walk home after that, but they walked in packs, not alone. And if one of them had to stay at school late so that the streets were emptied of parents and other students, one of us went to pick them up.
While we can't protect against everything, being smart about the independence we give is just as important.
