BOARDMAN Police want to question man in hostage matter

The man sneaked out the building's front door.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Township police will question an 18-year-old Youngstown man who took $200 and cost the police department 45 minutes of manpower for 10 officers in the process.
The officers surrounded an apartment building in the 100 block of Shields Road on Monday afternoon. Most had bulletproof shields blocking their faces and upper bodies. The rest carried rifles and handguns.
Capt. Jack Nichols said officers had been told a man was being held hostage inside the building by someone demanding money. When officers entered the apartment, however, the apartment was empty.
Nichols said officers would later learn that an 18-year-old known drug addict from Youngstown had asked two men he had recently met, one from Boardman and the other from Struthers, for a ride to the Shields Road building. Nichols said the Youngstown man borrowed $200 from the other two men and went inside. Police do not know why the man asked to be taken to the Shields Road address.
What happened next
The men waiting outside received a phone call several minutes later, via a cellular phone, from the Youngstown man saying he was being held at gunpoint in an apartment by someone demanding more money be brought into the building. The Boardman man and Struthers man panicked and called police, Nichols said. Police took 45 minutes to resolve the issue.
"What happened was, this guy borrowed the $200 and went through the back door of the building -- then left out of the front door while these guys were waiting in the back," said Nichols.
"For whatever reason he chose to make that phone call and I guess throw these guys off his scent. He didn't think they would call the police."
According to Nichols, the Youngstown man has not been seen since but police know who he is and are looking for him. A police report has been filed regarding the $200.
"We would like to talk to him and see what his side of this is," said Nichols.