Teaching Kids ABCs of Safety

Standing still long enough to be videotaped clearly wasn’t little Christopher Craddock’s idea of a good time, and his 5-year-old brother David really came to see the firetrucks, not to be fingerprinted.

But in the wake of several highly publicized child abduction cases, the free videotaping and fingerprinting were the biggest draw for the boys’ parents and other adults who attended the LAPD’s “Family Safety Festival” at Hansen Dam Sunday.

“Too many kids are missing--it worries me so,” said the boys’ mother, Tania Craddock of Pacoima. “My main reason for coming was for KinderVision.”

KinderVision, a service that helps families document information that can be used to help identify a child in the event of an abduction, was just one of many exhibits at the Los Angeles Police Department’s first safety festival.

Co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Housing Department, the aim of the festival was to spread awareness about a wide range of public safety issues, from ways to avoid random child abduction to child bicycle safety, said Los Angeles Police Officer Bill Longacre, who helped organize the event.

The festival, part of National Child Safety Month, also provided a natural link to the housing department’s efforts to restore blighted communities.

“I think public safety is the No. 1 concern of everyone we’ve talked to--safety in the home, safety in the neighborhood,” said Sam Luna, director of the city’s Neighborhood Recovery Program.

Throughout the day, fun and seriousness went hand in hand.

Banda music and R&B; oldies blared from speakers on stage where deejay Wayne Cleaves kept the multicultural crowd moving. By noon about 400 people had gathered for the event, mingling among the various exhibits and playing games.

Officers expected several hundred more would attend by the end of the day.

Across the field, Fire Capt. Greg Stone showed off his truck and gear to curious children such as David Craddock, who tried on a hat, boots and coat.

And a certain purple dinosaur named Barney upstaged just about everybody else with his entrance.

But underneath the veneer of fun, the message of safety was driven home in some subtle and some not so subtle ways.

Children who rode bikes in a “traffic rodeo” were required to wear helmets.

As his two sons, Christopher, 10, and Michael, 6, stood in line to ride, Phil Meyerson praised the event and its family safety message.

“Both my wife and I believe the more children know how to be safe and aware of anything that could occur, it gives them a better opportunity to grow up safe and strong,” he said.

Under a huge white tent, an exhibit sponsored by the LAPD Traffic Division graphically illustrated its anti-drinking and driving message with photographs of cars and victims involved in fatal, alcohol-related crashes.

On the other side of the tent, back at the KinderVision exhibit, children and their parents lined up to be videotaped by LAPD Explorers Scouts working with KinderVision employees.

Demands for the company’s services have increased dramatically since the nationally publicized kidnaping of Polly Hannah Klaas, a 12-year-old girl who was abducted from her home in Petaluma, said Ashby Sebastian of Carlsbad, who founded KinderVision with her husband, Douglas.

“Unfortunately when these types of incidents occur, it jars people into the reality that, ‘yes, it can happen to my family. It can happen to someone in my town. And that scares people,’ ” Sebastian said in a telephone interview.

KinderVision gave each child a videotape showing law enforcement officials giving tips on how to avoid being abducted.

Appended to the end of the tape was an interview with the child, giving name, age, address and other information.

The children are also fingerprinted on information cards, and parents were given the cards and the tapes to keep with their personal records.

“I think it’s good for the children to know” about safety, said Mariano Reyes of Arleta, after his sons, Jesus, 6, and Ricardo, 6, were videotaped.