WHITMAN, Mass. (WHDH) -- A community is on alert after police said a stranger tried to grab an 8-year-old girl from her grandparent’s front yard on Saturday evening.

“It’s shocking. I guess it can happen anywhere, but it was daylight and a busy street,” said Kim Gallahue, a Whitman resident.

Police said the girl was playing outside around 7 p.m. Saturday when the man came up to her and grabbed her arm.

“It’s very concerning because this girl was in her own grandparent’s driveway minding her own business apparently, and to be more or less snatched up from right off the street,” said Dep. Chief Tim Hanlon of the Whitman Police Department.

The girl started screaming and ran into her house, the man then took off.

“All of a sudden, my husband heard screaming and crying,” the girl’s grandmother said. “She’s crying, she’s hysterical, and she said, ‘it was a tall, black man grandma, and he grabbed my arm.’ The man walked up, grabbed her…and said, ‘come with me.’ He yanked her arm and when she screamed, he ran up the street.”

The girl’s grandfather got into his car and tried to find the man while her grandmother called 911 and comforted the child.

Police describe the suspect as a black male roughly 30 to 40 years old, between 6-feet, 1-inch and 6-feet, 4-inches tall. They said he had a thin build with a pink scar on his faced and was wearing all black, including a black baseball cap.

Hanlon, who is normally a D.A.R.E. officer, spent Monday reminding students to be on alert.

“Get the word out and keep it fresh in the kid’s minds as to what to do so that they can react properly like this little girl did,” said Hanlon.

“You think you might be in the safest place, it doesn’t matter where you live,” the girl’s grandmother said.

Police said they do not have a suspect at this time.