Buildup of Fear Surrounds Schoolchildren in Valley : Crime: Public reaction to serial molester has created new problems for families, school officials and police.

Like other conscientious students, 10-year-old Antonia Ledezma tries to pay attention to her classwork. But lately her mind has been elsewhere.

“Sometimes when I do my spelling words, I think about that man, and I miss a word,” she said, holding her mother’s hand on the way to Fullbright Avenue Elementary School in Canoga Park this week. “Sometimes I have bad dreams about him too.”

Since last month, the specter of a serial child molester has terrorized young San Fernando Valley students, parents and school officials. And as if the difficulties of the criminal investigation are not enough, the public reaction--described by one principal as “a frenzy”--has created another set of pressures and problems for families, schools and the scores of police officers assigned to the case.

Antonia and thousands of other students have been sent home with warning notes, and been gathered in assemblies to be alerted to the perils of talking to strangers. Parents have been barraged, as well, with warnings about someone preying on children as they walk to school.

Harried police have responded to hundreds of phone tips. Sometimes, it is nothing. Other times, they rush to investigate a report of a man approaching schoolgirls with offers of a ride, or toys and candy. But he always has vanished by the time the squad car arrives.

Authorities believe that one man has assaulted 32 victims since February--sometimes merely grabbing an arm, but in one case raping a 9-year-old.

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Although they cannot be certain that a single man committed all the acts, every incident inevitably now gets attributed to “the molester.” Police are criticized first for alerting the public too slowly to the pattern of crimes, then are second-guessed when, amid a massive deployment, they hold for four days a man who resembles the profile of the suspect before clearing him.

And at one school this week, children ran in fear from a high-ranking Los Angeles Unified administrator who walked onto campus in his suit and tie, just because he is black, like the suspect, one official said.

Police fingerprinted a bottle left on a bus because “somebody saw somebody that looked like somebody,” a detective reported.

“This person or persons has to be apprehended,” said David Almada, principal of Robert A. Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks, where police say a man, believed to be the molester, approached a girl last Friday. “These kids are suffering, even if they are not attacked--just the threat of it is devastating.

“How can they learn under this pressure?” Almada asked.

Meanwhile, the assailant appears to be mocking police, striking twice near a school just blocks from their Valley headquarters last week. On Thursday, the reward posted by two members of the Los Angeles City Council was doubled to $50,000 and authorities stopped several more people for questioning--but also admitted that they are no closer to catching the man.

The first molestation was reported in the West Valley on Feb. 22 and others followed sporadically at first, involving girls and young women from 5 to 21, but also some boys and crossing all racial and ethnic lines. The children reported most often that a stranger had grabbed their crotch.

But it was not until after Nov. 3, when a girl was dragged into an apartment complex laundry room and raped, that a detective contacted colleagues in several other police divisions. They compared notes and concluded--from descriptions and details of the attacks--that 22 incidents to date were linked, meaning they had a serial molester on their hands.

School officials were notified Nov. 11. Once the word got out, there was pandemonium. And the finger-pointing began.

Parents challenged police and school officials over their tactics, saying they weren’t warned soon enough. Criticism also was traded among the LAPD, Los Angeles Unified School District administrators and school police over whether the incidents were reported and investigated quickly enough. Police officials admit errors, and are considering measures to promote better training and intra-departmental cooperation.

When they finally launched a full-force investigation, they found themselves facing an entirely different kind of scrutiny--over the arrests and detention of men because they matched the molester’s description and were seen near a school.

He is described as a black about 35 to 45 years old, weighing 190 pounds and standing about 5 feet 11 inches. His hairline may be receding, and in some reports he has a slight beard.

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Police have arrested at least two men and released their names after detaining them for further investigation, and stopped many others for questioning. More than 100 officers in and out of uniform, including a special task force of 25 detectives, have been deployed. Traffic officers have been thrown into the mix, and so have narcotics, auto theft and burglary detectives. Downtown’s elite Metro squad has joined in, with no solid arrest to date.

“I am frustrated, as are all the officers working on the case,” said Deputy Chief Martin H. Pomeroy. “We have several hundred clues, but that still has not yet led to a primary suspect.”

“It’s difficult,” said Pomeroy, who recently took command of Valley police operations. “There are 220 square miles in the San Fernando Valley and over 140 schools that are potential targets. It gives the suspect a lot of room in which to hide.”

There are other reasons why such a case is a logistic and procedural nightmare: Police must balance how much information they share with the public and how much they withhold for fear of driving the molester underground. And they must conduct their investigation in the midst of an ever-building media frenzy in which reporters often arrive at a scene and publicize clues before officers arrive.

“They’re between a rock and hard place,” said Sally Shane, principal at Van Nuys Elementary School.

Others, however, have been less understanding, including James Elliott Singletary, the latest man to be arrested. After being held for four days, he was released and cleared--but not before his name was broadcast worldwide as a suspect.

The fact that children have reported every suspicious incident as another “attack” has made it even more difficult for a police force that cannot afford to dismiss even the slightest tip.

“I believe the children,” one principal confided, “but I also believe there may be an element of contagion out there.”

Experts in psychological profiles of criminals, including FBI Special Agent Kenneth Lanning of the bureau’s Behavioral Sciences Unit, say the man likely is a social loner uncomfortable communicating with children, demonstrated by his grabbing of his targets.

They say he probably does not know his victims, unlike many molesters of the “Pied Piper” variety who immerse themselves in activities that involve children.

“This is his fix, his drive, what makes his day,” said Ruben Rodriguez, senior analyst at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children near Washington. “This is his existence.”

The fact that the incidents have continued despite pervasive publicity and unprecedented police presence fuels the notion that the man is obsessed, authorities have said, but also increases the prospect that he will be caught.

Until that happens, parents and teachers are left with the delicate task of protecting young children without scarring fragile psyches.

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The morning after the rape of one of his students, Principal James Grover gathered his Fullbright Elementary students in the schoolyard. “I know I didn’t use the word rape and I don’t think I used the word molest, I think I used the word attack, “ Grover said. “I wanted them to know that something very serious had happened, but I didn’t want to alarm them unnecessarily.”

Deciding what to tell children is not something most principals, teachers and parents have experience in doing. “We’re learning along with everyone else as things develop,” Grover said. “This idea of a molester attacking children throughout the Valley at different times and different places, with even different methods, kind of knocks us all for a loop.”

Doreen Aghajanian, a fifth-grade teacher at Fullbright, said that when her students ask her to explain such terms as molester and rape, “I tell them it’s the hurting of a child--and they should talk about it with their parents.”

Loeb Aronin, director of psychological services for the Los Angeles Unified School District, cautioned that children may be succumbing to fear in ways their teachers and parents cannot see. “The kid, on the outside, may not look like they’re touched by this,” Aronin said. “But on the inside may be churning.”

Days after a girl was reported grabbed on the grounds of Van Nuys Elementary School, it looked as if a police tactical alert was in force. Patrol cars swept by the tree-lined campus every few minutes. So did school police. Nervous parents walked their children right into the school, not content to leave them at the front door.

One mother, Patricia Morales, said she wanted to stay with her first-grader, Karen, even if it meant attending class with her.

“She is afraid to go to school,” Morales said.

“Tengo miedo, “ said her daughter, “I am afraid.”

Lorenzo Welch took time off work to shepherd his son Delon to the school.

“I wish they’d catch him,” Welch said. “How do you tell a 4-year-old he can’t go to school because there’s a molester around? He’s too young to understand.”