Belleville student refuses to go with stranger claiming to be sent by mom

A warning for parents and students in Belleville on Wednesday morning after a 12-year-old boy was approached on the way to school.

The boy was on Parkwood headed to pick up two friends on the way to the bus stop when he says he was stopped by a man in a dark blue minivan.

The man claimed he was sent by the boy's mother to pick him up.

The boy did not recognize him, and did the right thing.

"She told me if something happens like this and I'm close to home just run home," the boy said.

He said he'd seen the van in the neighborhood before.

"That guy could have been impatient, gotten out of the car and grabbed my son," said his mother, Vitavia Farmer. "I've been here for 16 years. I've never, ever seen anything like this happen."

The suspect in that blue minvan is described as an older African-American man wearing a black baseball cap and dark sunglasses.