ABDUCTIONS RATTLE A TOWN (The two girls were grabbed apparently by strangers, and there’s little comfort here that such cases are rare)

They were grabbed off the streets of Kings Park and Hauppauge in the early hours of autumn evenings when the sun still lit the sky. A teenage girl out for a jog, abducted into a car at gunpoint and raped. A child riding her bike to play with a neighbor's dog, snatched into a stranger's car. The two recent abductions in Smithtown have rattled the community's nerves. Many children, already living in a closely supervised world, are finding themselves with even fewer liberties. Parents are driving their children home. Gone are the days of playing alone outside. But statistics show stranger abductions in the county and nationwide are extremely rare.

Gone Missing: The number of cases of children reported missing:

ABDUCTED BY:

Acquaintance

Nassau - 6

Suffolk - 0

NYC - 1

State - 34

Family Member

Nassau - 16

Suffolk - 11

NYC - 41

State - 137

Stranger

Nassau - 0

Suffolk - 0

NYC - 0

State - 1

RUNAWAYS

Nassau - 851

Suffolk - 1,875

NYC - 4,778

State - 19,454

LOST

Nassau - 37

Suffolk - 9

NYC - 0

State - 330

UNKNOWN

Nassau - 126

Suffolk - 92

NYC - 9

State - 1,266

(New York)