The Greene County Sheriff’s office continues to investigate an attempted abduction early Monday in Grand Junction.

According to Greene County dispatch, an attempted abduction was reported near the Greene County Intermediate School at 11:38am.  Officials tell Raccoon Valley Radio a three year-old girl was reportedly being taken to a child care center when a white van approached her and her mother.

Sheriff Steve Haupert says a pitbull was involved but it is unclear to what extent the animal played in the incident.  Haupert adds that they recovered blood from the canine’s mouth and have sent in the samples to be tested at the Criminalistics Laboratory in Ankeny.

He states that the vehicle description that was reported to them by the mother didn’t fit the vehicle they saw from video surveillance from the Intermediate School and they will be following up with the mother to conduct a polygraph test.

In response to the attempted abduction, the schools administrators decided to place Greene County Elementary, Intermediate and Middle Schools under an external lockdown around 1pm.  Elementary Principal Scott Johnson says this means all outside doors are locked and no one can get into the buildings.

He adds that they remained in lockdown until regular dismissal time, with normal after school procedures in place.  Johnson comments that they decided to place the schools in a lockdown as a precautionary procedure for students’ safety.  Last time any of the schools had to be in lockdown was in November of 2013 after a high speed chase ended in Jefferson and was a couple of blocks away from the elementary school in Jefferson.

The search of the vehicle was called off by the Sheriff’s office around 3pm due to their information and the contiguous counties search not finding the vehicle.  Haupert notes that they felt no student was in immediate danger.

This is the third attempted abduction in the last two days.  The other two happened in Webster County Sunday.