INOLA, Okla. — An Inola dad is raising concerns about his daughter's safety, after she came home from a volleyball tournament and told him a terrifying story.
“It's every parents nightmare to see their kid on the phone and you’re helpless in the situation," said Matthew.
That nightmare became his reality.
Out of an abundance of caution for his family's safety, we're only using his first name.
His daughter was on her way home from a game on the bus, when the team made a pit stop at a QuikTrip in Catoosa.
She said a man they didn't know approached the bus, and Matthew said locked his focus in on his daughter.
"He’s telling her she’s special, tapping her on the shoulder and following her through the store, following her to the bus," he said. ”He’s a grown man, you know, you don’t talk to children like that. It’s ridiculous.”
Their coach was inside the store at the time of the interaction. Matthew's daughter told him things escalated when they tried to ignore the man.
“He’s banging on the doors and they have the doors shut and the girls are yelling at him telling him to go away and he won’t go away," he said. "When he does finally go away, he gets in his vehicle, which is parked right by the school bus and shows the girls a gun.”
The Rogers County Sheriff's Office, Tulsa Police Department and the Catoosa Police Department are all involved in the investigation.
Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton said because the incident happened at a QuikTrip, they have surveillance video to review to help figure out what happened.
"We want to find out more than anything who this individual is and to prevent anything like this from happening again," said Walton. "We’ve got enough information to put some piece together, it just takes a minute to get that done.”
As a dad, Matthew feels the school should have done more to protect his child and the rest of the team, "There's got to be some kind of protocol in place. I can think of a hundred things that could have been done differently, it was like everything was handled in the worst possible way."
Instead of hearing from the coach or administration, Matthew said he had to reach out to the school to see how they handled things.
"If he would have contacted me I would have felt 100% better," he said. "If he would have contacted the police I would have felt better. If anything like that would have happened, but none of that happened. And it really concerns me that that’s okay?”
Inola High School held a meeting to give parents information and answer questions. The school did not want to talk on camera but did give us a statement:
This morning, Inola Public Schools was made aware of an incident involving a customer at a convenience store in Catoosa and the Inola Volleyball team.
The incident took place at roughly 9:30 Monday night. The customer was harassing members of the team inside the store. As the harassment intensified, the players left the store and went to the bus. The individual followed the student-athletes to the bus continuing to harass the girls until he got into his vehicle and left.
Several law enforcement agencies were contacted and have been extremely helpful. I want to thank the Catoosa Police Department and Rogers County Sheriff’s Office for their diligent efforts to keep our students safe.
We contacted the parents of the team early this morning to let them know that there was an incident and we would pass on information as it became available.
Although there has been speculation that a gun was present and inappropriate touching of a volleyball player neither has been confirmed or seen through surveillance video.
Unfortunately, since this is an ongoing police investigation, we cannot comment any further at this time.
Walton said the school and QuikTrip are cooperating with the investigation.
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