Pervert alerts tend to show up in clusters, most recently in East Dallas:

A man in a small gray car asked for directions from a mother pushing her baby’s stroller in Hollywood Heights. As she walked over to show him her smartphone map, she saw he was masturbating. The offender drove off before the startled woman could get his plate number.

A woman walking near the Bryan Street neighborhood encountered a different man, driving a gray Hyundai, who called out a question and then quickly exposed himself.

A few blocks south of Mockingbird Elementary School, a man in a silver vehicle drove up to a woman and pleaded, "Help me. Please, I have an emergency." Immediately recognizing him as the same man who had exposed himself to her last year — with the same fabricated story — she began yelling until he fled.

These types of incidents, which happen not only in Dallas but all over North Texas, are disgusting, scary and even traumatizing.

Many women don’t report them to law enforcement because they were too off-guard to provide many details. Others are too embarrassed. But Dallas police Sgt. Amy Mills, who oversees the adult sexual assaults unit, says calling 911 each and every time is hugely important.

It’s true that the chance of bringing these perps to justice is not great. No arrests have been made in any of the most recent cases.

But as Mills told me, if people aren’t reporting the crime, police can’t know a flasher has targeted a particular neighborhood and more patrols are needed.

As of August, Dallas police had recorded 93 reports of men exposing themselves; during the same period in 2017, police had filed 107 reports. The incidents are 50-50 between offenders in cars and those on foot.

Delmar Avenue, in an area of East Dallas where a recent flasher incident occurred, sits empty Tuesday,evening. (Shaban Athuman / Staff Photographer)

Mills believes those statistics vastly underestimate the true number of incidents. When investigating one report, cops sometimes learn that a dozen more have been reported on the local Nextdoor website — but not to police.

Who knows how many more women didn’t post their encounter anywhere.

State law requires that to charge someone with indecent exposure, a Class B misdemeanor, three criteria must be met: Not only must a positive ID be made by the victim, she must confirm that the perp fully exposed himself and that he was exhibiting “intent to arouse or gratify.” (If this crime occurs in front of someone under age 17, the charge is felony indecency with a child.)

Mills gets as frustrated by the legal benchmarks as the victims do. But don’t blame Dallas police — that’s the way the state law is written.

After a third indecent exposure conviction, a person is required to register as a sex offender. Getting habitual offenders on that roll is a priority for Mills.

The Dallas police sergeant also worries that indecent exposure can be a criminal building block. “They get this thrill from scaring women by exposing themselves. Then when that’s not enough to get that thrill, will they go to grabbing? We want to stop that progression.”

Attorney Erin Hendricks, with years of experience both in the Dallas DA’s office and as a defense lawyer, worries about the same thing. “How many times did he drive down Kenwood and Delmar masturbating before he called out to a woman? What if the next time she has her daughters with her? What if the next time he’s out of his car? And the time after that, he’s on the sidewalk?”

So why do men flash their private parts in public?

Sarah Feuerbacher, director of Southern Methodist University's Center for Family Counseling, points out several reasons for the exhibitionism, which she described as a diagnosed mental disorder that has differing levels of severity, but is illegal in all forms.

“Some perpetrators exhibit for the shock value, and some do it with the fantasy that the victim will have some sort of enjoyment,” she said.

Rarely does a person with unusual sexual urges seek help, Feuerbacher said, so intervention typically doesn’t occur until the perpetrator is in legal trouble.

I talked to more than a dozen women for this column — some of them experts and others simply East Dallas residents. Almost every one of them not only had been the victim of this nasty crime but still held detailed, disturbing memories of it, even decades later.

A crime doesn’t have to be physical to have psychological impact. Sometimes it’s because the incident occurred before a woman had developed strong coping skills. Or perhaps it was traumatic in ways she didn’t realize.

Defense lawyer Messina Madson, formerly first assistant in the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, said that from the victim’s point of view, “you don’t know this person and now they’ve done something totally inappropriate without your permission — without you expecting it. You’re left with awful questions. ‘What am I supposed to do with this? Why did this happen? Has this person been following me?’"

Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that it’s completely natural to not want to think about these disgusting encounters, much less talk to a cop about them.

But if you can find the strength and courage to report this crime to law enforcement — regardless of whether police can make a case or not — all of us likely will be the safer for it.

If you encounter a flasher

-- Do not engage with the perpetrator.

-- Get to a safe place and call 911 immediately.

-- Try to remember key things: car description, offender's clothing.

-- If time permits, try to get a good look at the person's face.

-- In rare cases, it's possible to get a license plate number.

Dallas Police Department