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Stranger danger Facebook post from Independence going viral

Posted at 3:35 PM, Jun 23, 2016
and last updated 2016-06-23 18:32:34-04

A Facebook post from a local grandmother is going viral after she says her grandchildren may have been targeted while watching a movie at AMC 20 in Independence Missouri.

The post already has more than 4,500 shares, and the woman at the center of the post spoke exclusively to 41 Action News, but did not want to be identified. She says she saw a man snapping a photo, while others in the group of strangers were staring at her and her grandchildren throughout the movie.

”As the movie is playing the women kept turning around looking at us, staring at us,” the woman told 41 Action News.

She said after the movie it felt like the group, including two men and two women, followed her and her three grandchildren.

“They came up so closely that the older women was almost touching me with her clothing and I looked to the right and noticed the man was really close to my grandson and the other woman was really close to my other grandson,” she said.

The post has also generated some confusion among commenters. One person writing online said Independence SWAT was called to arrest people grabbing children in public places, which Independence police say is simply not true.

Other metro police stations have been getting phone calls and are taking to social media to clear the air, including the Lee’s Summit Police Department.

“It’s important to fact check on social media, so any time that you get something, you really want to do a little bit of extra research and see if that really has happened, we had a lot of people calling us here at the police department which is why we did put some information out,” said Officer Beth Glover with LSPD.

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Ali Hoxie can be reached at ali.hoxie@kshb.com

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