An encounter with a man accused of inappropriate and sexual behaviour towards three young students reportedly sent one child running in fear and left another visibly shaken, when police officers arrived.
The children were walking to school on April 1 when they encountered a man along Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, according to the West Palm Beach Police Department (WPBPD).
One of the children told police the man had a hand down his pants and told the little girl the “perverted things that he wanted to do to her” on her way home from school, according to WPBPD’s probable cause affidavit.
The encounter scared the girl so much she started running and the suspect reportedly tried following her, the affidavit continued. When an officer later asked what he said, the girl told police she did not want to repeat some of the words he used, WPBPD added.
Another child, who the police department noted was still in tears when talking to the officer, also did not want to repeat what the man said to her. The young girl said he had waved her over and then started saying “weird” things, the complaint stated.
The final student, a boy, said the suspect had tried calling him over too and was yelling vulgar words. According to the complaint, all three children gave the same description of the suspect.
The officer who filed the complaint explained the man, identified as Eldren Chaney, admitted going up to children that morning and asking them for oral sex. He reportedly added the young girls “screamed no” before they left and continued toward school.
Chaney, 35, was taken into custody and transported to the Palm Beach County jail. During his arrest, officers allegedly found a crack pipe on the suspect, and he admitted it was his, the complaint stated. He ended up being booked on counts of lewd and lascivious behaviour and possession of drug paraphernalia.