Child Safety Plan Enlists Parents

Hoping to spare other parents her anguish and grief, Erin Runnion introduced a program Monday that relies on parents and other caretakers taking turns supervising children and keeping an eye out for potential predators.

Samantha’s Pride is named in memory of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion, who was playing with a friend outside her family’s Stanton condominium in July 2002 when she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and strangled. Her body was later found off Ortega Highway.

Erin Runnion, who has since moved from Stanton, is awaiting the April trial of her daughter’s accused killer, Alejandro Avila, 28, of Lake Elsinore. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Runnion believes her daughter would be alive today had a program similar to Samantha’s Pride been in place in her Stanton neighborhood. And like the Amber Alert, she hopes the idea will be adopted by communities across the United States as a tool to undermine would-be attackers.

“Predators look for an easy target,” she said during a news conference at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department headquarters. “We’re eliminating that opportunity.”

About 15 pilot programs have been underway in the last year in San Clemente, Laguna Beach and Mission Viejo as the details of Samantha’s Pride have been worked out.

The Joyful Child Foundation, a nonprofit child safety advocacy group co-founded by Runnion in her daughter’s memory, has kits available for communities interested in implementing the program.

The program is designed to foster the kind of community involvement typical of Neighborhood Watch programs, in which residents agree to keep a collective eye on a community, sometimes setting up sidewalk patrols.

Samantha’s Pride can be tailored to the particular needs of a neighborhood, Runnion said.

It will be up to residents in each program to pick a team leader and work out a rotation system to make sure children are supervised when they walk to school or bus stops or are playing outside.

Parents and other volunteers must be screened through local and national databases, free of charge.

Normally, such background checks cost about $22, according to authorities.

But the FBI, the California Department of Justice and the Sheriff’s Department have agreed to waive fees for Runnion’s program.

The Joyful Child Foundation will assign a number to each Pride volunteer and send them two red vests stenciled with that number.

“Samantha’s Pride Protector” will be printed on the back of each vest, which volunteers will be expected to wear when they are on duty. Signs will announce that a neighborhood has adopted the program.

Nicole Meloche, a 31-year-old Realtor with two young children, has been involved in one of the San Clemente programs. She said it has brought her neighborhood closer together. So far, Meloche said, most of the volunteers are mothers like her, but some fathers have begun to sign up.

Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona and others said the program could help scare away sexual predators.

“If there’s even a perception that a community is safer, or watched, or a parent is present, the predator is going to go somewhere else,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Christine Murray, who worked on Samantha’s case.