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CSB, YPD, investigating after toddler found wandering Belmont Avenue
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Staff at the Mahoning County Children Services Board are investigating after a 2-year-old boy was found wandering a busy North Side street Friday.
Police were called to Belmont and Lora avenues about 9 a.m. where they found the child, who was walking on the sidewalk. Paramedics were summoned, but the boy was checked out and was fine, they said.
A police supervisor said several people called 911 to report the boy was in the street.
Charles Pegues, who was helping at a funeral service at Centenary United Methodist Church across the street, said he saw the boy walk at least a block to a store, then turn around.
Pegues said he was concerned about the boy, and when he got inside the church, he was going to call 911 but police had arrived by then.
Pegues said he was upset that as CSB workers drove away with the boy, there was still no one there to claim him.
“That’s ridiculous,” Pegues said. “No one came for him.”
About 10 a.m., police got a call from a home in the 600 block of Delaware Avenue, where a man reported his young son was missing. Police went to the house to take a report that would be forwarded to CSB.
The man told police he was sleeping. When he woke up, the child was gone, police said.