Man was not trying to kidnap girl, police say

STRUTHERS -- A man suspected of trying to abduct a seventh-grade girl from Struthers High School on Saturday was actually a school custodian who thought it would be easier to drive the girl to the gym than advise her how to make her way through the construction site, police said.
Police were called to the school about 10 a.m. after a seventh-grade basketball player who is new to the city told her teacher that a man in a blue truck offered to drive her to the gym after she asked for directions.
After the girl described the man, police reports state, school employees told the investigating officer that an off-duty custodian fit the description.
When the custodian was called to the scene, he explained that he had just dropped off his daughter for basketball practice and offered to drive the seventh-grade girl because he knew it would be difficult for her to make her way to the gym on foot because of ongoing construction at the school.
To reach the gym from where she was, police reports state, the girl would have had to walk around the school and bus garage, up Sexton Street and down Euclid Avenue.
The girl told police the man did not touch her or do anything improper.