A lone young man has struck three young schoolgirls with his vehicle in early morning darkness over the past two weeks near East Anchorage elementary schools, and police and school authorities are calling the incidents abduction attempts.

Authorities say the three episodes -- the first occurred Jan. 14, the second Thursday and the third Friday -- are connected, even though the precise details investigators have gathered differ.

"We have a very dangerous situation unfolding in the community," schools Superintendent Carol Comeau said in a joint School District-police press briefing Friday.

The episodes are alike in that the vehicle involved strikes the children, then the driver attempts to get the youngsters into the car. In the Thursday morning case, the 10-year-old girl got into the car, apparently accepting the driver's offer of a ride, but was later released after they passed by her school and she started screaming.

On Friday, the incident unfolded around 7:45 a.m. when a man first told the 11-year-old girl walking to Clark Middle School that there was a moose in the neighborhood and to get in the car. When she refused, he hit her in the back with his vehicle, then told her he worked at the hospital and could give her a ride, police said.

"We think the individual is becoming emboldened," said Lt. Nancy Reeder of the Anchorage Police Department's patrol unit.

Friday's incident occurred around Fireoved Drive and Chena Avenue in the Glenn Highway-Boniface Parkway area. Thursday's occurred near Ptarmigan Park Elementary in Muldoon. And the Jan. 14 episode occurred near Creekside Park Elementary, also in Muldoon.

All the attempts occurred between about 7:30 and 8:45 in the morning, when kids are walking in the dark to bus stops or to school, authorities said.

Police described the suspect as an 18- to 20-year-old black man with light skin. He is said to have been wearing rectangular-framed glasses, said Reeder. Police said that one girl described the vehicle he was driving as a dark-colored, mid-sized SUV.

After hearing about this week's incidents, school officials connected them to the one on Jan. 14 when a vehicle hit a 10-year-old girl just before 8:30 a.m. as she headed into Creekside Park Elementary, which is at East Sixth Avenue and Creekside Street. After the vehicle bumped the girl, the man driving offered her a ride but she refused.

Lt. Bill Richardson, the head of the School Resource Officer program, which is the unit of the police department that places police officers in schools, said the first two incidents by themselves didn't at first rise to the level of what authorities considered to be attempted abductions. They were just suspicious circumstances, he said. "Until this morning, we would have been looked upon by a lot of people as hysterical, Chicken Little," he said. "These minor kinds of bumps with pedestrians happen. They happen more than people know. It's not uncommon for the person to make some kind of verbal contact: 'Are you OK? Can I give you a ride?' "

In the first two instances, the man did not say anything to the girl until she was hit. But after Friday morning's incident, school officials rang the alarm bell. Along with police, they summoned the media and telephoned parents to get the word out.

"The consequences of a press conference often is the guy goes underground," Richardson said. "But that's not necessarily a bad thing, if he stays there."

Parents' reactions around town varied from worried to skeptical.

Sylvia Biondich is a teacher's aide and parent at Creekside. When she first heard about the girl struck by the car near the school in mid-January, she blamed the recent road construction that left what she calls a dangerous street for kids to walk on. When she learned Friday that school authorities were calling it more than a hit and run and connecting it to an attempted abduction, she said, "I'm more afraid that careless drivers on our narrow street are going to strike children than that there's a predator."

She's still reminding her children, though, not to talk to people they don't know and that "if a car slows down to get the devil away from there."

Outside Ptarmigan Elementary Friday afternoon, parents were picking up their kids. Tonya Kernak said she's also going to remind her kids about "stranger danger." Another parent said he was going to spend more time hanging around outside the school after he drops off his three girls in the morning.

Two little boys with overstuffed backpacks told a teacher their parent wasn't coming so they were going to walk home. A little girl with big eyes and a pink jacket followed them out the front door. The teacher told them not to forget their little sister.