Youths’ Play With Camera Creates Stir Among Educators, Parents : Thousand Oaks: Reports of males filming schoolchildren in residential areas result in flyers being sent to parents.

A child-stalker scare in the Conejo Valley turned out Friday to be nothing more than a case of three curious teen-agers playing around with a new video camera, authorities said.

The scare was triggered by reports last month of teen-age boys filming schoolchildren on residential streets in northern Thousand Oaks.

Because of those reports, the Conejo Valley Unified School District sent 9,000 notices home on Wednesday and Thursday, warning parents of two males who might have “an unnatural interest” in young children.

One of the parents realized the flyers were referring to her 17-year-old son and called authorities, who interviewed the boy and his two 17-year-old friends late Thursday and decided the youths were just experimenting with the video camera, deputies said.

“They had decided to have some fun and try to mimic some of the TV talk shows,” Sheriff’s Lt. Larry Reynolds said. “They were driving around and interviewing people at random.”

He said the teen-agers had been conducting sidewalk interviews with adults and children since early February, though none of the encounters with adults were reported to authorities.

“These teen-age boys did not realize how seriously things like this are taken by parents and by us in the Police Department,” Reynolds said.

“Even though no crime had been committed, we were seriously concerned about the motivation of people driving around videotaping small children,” he added.

Reynolds said the school flyers set off a flurry of calls from worried parents to the East Valley Sheriff’s Station. The lieutenant said he believed recent high-profile attacks on children--the abduction and slaying of Polly Klaas in Petaluma, Calif., and a series of molestations in the San Fernando Valley--might have added to their anxiety.

“It wasn’t a panic,” Reynolds said. “But they were real concerned that maybe somebody out there was about to abduct one of their children.”

The two incidents that aroused suspicion occurred on the afternoons of Feb. 5 and Feb. 27, Paige said.

In the first, two teen-age boys driving a black Ford Bronco filmed a 6-year-old boy sitting on Sunset Hills Boulevard. The teen-agers asked the boy if he wanted some candy, whether he was a boy or a girl, and whether he would stand up for the camera. Then they drove off.

The second incident involved a 10-year-old girl who was hitting a tennis ball against her garage door on Storm Cloud Street when two teen-agers got out of a white van and started filming her. They asked if she was playing tennis and if she needed more tennis balls, Reynolds said, then made a taunting comment when she went inside her house.

On Friday, deputies learned of a third incident that occurred Feb. 16 and involved a 12-year-old boy. The boy’s mother said two teen-agers in a black truck filmed her son as he walked down the street. They joked that there was a new law requiring pedestrians to wear helmets and asked the boy why he wasn’t wearing one.

Although some of the teen-agers’ comments could be misconstrued, Reynolds said investigators do not believe the boys meant any harm to the children.

After receiving the second report, sheriff’s deputies contacted Thousand Oaks school officials on Tuesday and district officials decided to warn parents. Deputies also notified five nearby school districts, though none of those sent flyers home.

Neither school officials nor sheriff’s deputies could remember the last time such a notice was sent home to Thousand Oaks parents.

“It’s a rare occurrence,” said Barbara Ryan, a Conejo Valley administrator. “But we felt we wanted to inform the community.”

Ryan said teachers used the incidents as an opportunity to remind students about personal safety.

In addition to notifying the schools, the Sheriff’s Department also informed Neighborhood Watch groups in Thousand Oaks through a recorded message on a phone line.

Lori Fiore, co-chair of the parent-faculty association at Maple Elementary School in Thousand Oaks, said even though sheriff’s deputies believe the incidents were harmless, they serve as a good warning to parents.

“We were just all really surprised and this will alert us to keep on the lookout,” she said.