ABINGTON – Two teen girls remain shaken nearly a week after a grown man slid them his telephone number and then stared at them from his car outside an Abington pizza shop on Friday.

Terrified, one of the girls called to tell her mother, Debbie Nihtila, about the incident and the panicked mom quickly picked up the girls and went looking around the neighborhood for the man, Nihtila said.

Furious, Nihtila filed a police report with the Abington Police Department demanding that cops take action against the man who, she said, acted inappropriately toward the minors.

Police followed up in the incident by calling the man, who told police he thought the girls were of legal age and apologized, said Abington Police Chief David Majenski.

Calling him a “knucklehead” who used poor judgment, Majenski said there was nothing police could do legally since the man broke no law.

But Nihtila, of Brockton, said the man’s actions were anything but innocent and have left her 14-year-old daughter terrified of leaving the house. Now the mom said she feels helpless and frustrated that the matter hadn’t been taken more seriously.

“There are men out there giving their name and number, fishing, trying to get children to call them,” Nihtila said. “If he was 15 trying to be friends with her, that’s something different. This was a man. It’s not OK.”

In many cases, adults who engage in subtle yet inappropriate behavior toward minors are careful not to cross the line of what is considered illegal, said Stacie Rumenap, president of Stop Child Predators, based in Washington, D.C.

“It’s a luring process,” she said. “It happens a lot online, but it happens in the real world as well. They push the boundary as much as possible, without crossing the line, and it’s frustrating because the police department’s hands are tied.”

In the meantime, she added, those adults leave a trail of confused young victims who feel uneasy knowing that such a person may be lurking about, she said.

In this case, she added, the two girls were savvy enough not only to ignore the man’s advances but to immediately inform a trusted adult.

“Unfortunately, what happens too often ... (is) kids are too embarrassed or too afraid to tell anybody, and they shoulder that by themselves,” she said.

And, in a far worse scenario, Nihtila said, a young girl could fall for the trap of a preying adult and get involved with someone they shouldn’t.

“That’s my fear, that people aren’t unaware of the strategies used by guys like that,” said Nihtila, who said she keeps an eye out for the man’s car.

It was about 5 p.m. Friday when Nihtila said her daughter, who she did not want identified, and her 13-year-old friend, who also went unnamed, walked to Aroma Pizza and Grill on the Brockton-Abington line to get dinner.

As the girls sat at a table waiting for their order, a man they had never met walked up to their table, Nihtila recounted.

Without a word, he slammed down a piece of paper on which he had written his name, phone number and the message “You be cute,” and walked out of the shop, she said.

Instead of driving away, the girls told Nihtila that he stared at them for several minutes before finally taking off.

Unable to find the man but refusing to let the incident go, Nihtila said she filed a police report the next day with the Abington Police Department, where she learned that the man is a 26-year-old Rockland resident with an arrest record.

When reached by a police lieutenant that day, the man told police that he thought the girls were older than they were and apologized, Majenski said.

After checking to see if the man was a registered sex offender – which police said he is not – authorities warned the man to stay away from the teens and that neighborhood, he said.

“The lieutenant did his due diligence to find out what kind of individual he was, and as far as the law is concerned, (the man) didn’t do anything that crossed the line,” Majenski said.

Though Majenski said he understands the mother’s frustration, he noted that because the man didn’t solicit the teens, police have no legal ground to make an arrest.

“We don’t want to under-react, but we also don’t want to overreact,” he said. “We’re not taking it lightly but, because somebody slid somebody a number, it’s not a chargeable offense in this particular circumstance.”

Though Rumenap, of Stop Child Predators, agreed that police shouldn’t arrest a person who had not committed a crime, she said that laws in place often keep subtly inappropriate behavior unchecked.

“The law, it often protects the the perpetrator and not the victim,” she said. “We don’t know if this guy is a predator,” but until this guy is successful in getting someone in his car and harming someone in some way, the police can’t do anything. It’s a slippery slope.”

In the meantime, Nihtila advised parents to not only educate their kids about that kind of danger, but to also follow up with police if that were to arise.

“My daughter handled it right, thank God, but you never know with another girl,” she said.

Dafney Tales may be reached at dtales@enterprisenews.com.