Detectives are investigating the attempted abduction of a teenage girl in St. Petersburg.

According to reports, the 15-year-old girl was walking east on First Avenue S at about 3:30 p.m. Monday when she was approached from behind by a man who grabbed her upper arm and said "get in."

Detectives said the girl reacted by kicking the suspect in the groin, then broke free from his grasp and ran away.

The girl ran from the area and called her friend's mother to pick her up a few blocks away.

Police said the girl did not get a good look at the suspect, and she said she could only describe him as an older white man who was wearing black gloves and blue jeans. The girl did not see the suspect's vehicle, if he had one nearby.

Connections with similar incident?

Investigators are trying to determine if that incident is related to one that happened earlier on Monday.

In the earlier case, a 14-year-old girl was walking in the area of 26th Avenue N and 66th Street at about 11 a.m. when she saw a white Lincoln Navigator drive slowly past her. The SUV stopped and, as she walked past, the driver stepped out of the vehicle.

The girl said the man made a flirtatious comment and asked if she needed a ride. The girl kept walking and immediately took out her cell phone to call her father, the report said.

The man got back into the SUV and drove off without attempting to grab the girl.

Police said the girl described the driver of the SUV as a light-skinned Hispanic man in a white T-shirt and blue jeans.

Investigators said they don't know if the two cases are related, but they said that given the similar ages of the girls, the same date and the proximity of the two incidents, they are considering it a possibility.

"Those sites are close to each other, probably more than a five minute drive and the victims are very similar in age,'' said Mike Puetz, a spokesman for the St. Petersburg Police Department. "And (the incidents) have this connotation of maybe having some sort of sexual aspect to them.''



Anyone with information on either case is asked to call the police at (727) 893-7780.