POLAND Mother calls police after encounter
The boy's mother saw the man drive away as she was calling the police.
POLAND -- Amid today's concerns nationally about child abductions, a comment a man made to a 5-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl led to a suspicious person report to township police Tuesday evening.
The boy, who was with the girl in the rear yard of his residence, asked the girl, who lives nearby, to accompany him to see what a man was doing in an adjacent parking lot. The man was sitting in a car near a closed bar at U.S. Route 224 and Struthers Road at 6:30 p.m.
The man, who was using a knife to clean husks off corn, told the girl, "I guess I can't take him now because you're here," but made no attempt to grab them, the children told police.
The man offered the children suckers, and they accepted, then the children reported the encounter to the boy's mother, who called police, according to Sgt. Brian Goodin of the township police department.
Called police
As she was on the phone reporting the situation to police, the boy's mother saw the man drive east on Route 224 toward Pennsylvania, and Lowellville and Pennsylvania State Police were alerted, Goodin said. The boy's mother could not get a close enough look to identify the license plate or even what state it was from, he said.
The suspect is described as a thin white man, 50 to 60 years old, balding on the top of his head, with hair on the sides, driving a white four-door car with a rear spoiler.
The boy's mother was in the yard, but her view was obstructed by a thick row of pine trees separating the house from the closed bar, Goodin said.
Goodin said parents need to reinforce their advice to children not to talk to strangers and to alert a parent if a stranger approaches them.