'Suspicious' Man Follows Eisenhower Student; Parents, School on Alert

A Patch reader with a child at Eisenhower Science and Technology Leadership Academy was alarmed Thursday night by a call from the school alerting her to an incident earlier in the day in which a young student was followed to school by a suspicious man.

Norristown Police responded to the school just after 8:40 a.m. on Thursday, April 25 and spoke to the student who was visibly upset, police said. The young man told police that he was walking to school in the rear alley behind Astor Street just before 8 a.m. when he noticed a man he had never seen before standing in the alley near a tree. As the student passed him in the alley, the man reportedly began to follow behind him, walking with a "lumbering gait" at approximately a 50-foot distance. 

The student told police that he became afraid and began running, but the man ran after him and followed him all the way to school. Once at school, the man reportedly ran through the school parking lot north towards the Astor Square Shopping Center.

Police searched the nearby area for the man, described as a white male in his 30s, approximately 5'7", with a thin build and wearing a sky blue hooded sweatshirt and camouflage pants, but could not locate him. The student said he could not describe the man's face because the hood of his sweatshirt was up and covering it.

The man never spoke or had physical contact with the boy and he was unhurt in the incident. The student's mother was alerted to the incident and the student was instructed to call 911 if he should encounter the man again.

Anyone with information about this incident or about the man in question should contact the Norristown Police Department at 610-270-0977.