Cops probe attempted abduction

WILKES-BARRE – City police are investigating an attempted abduction of a Bear Creek Community Charter School student Thursday morning at a bus stop at Barney and Horton streets.

The middle school student was alone when a man approached her at about 7:15 a.m., school Principal Peg Foster said.

“She was walking to the bus stop by herself and a man approached her and asked if she wanted a ride to work,” Foster said. “The girl was smart enough to say ‘I don’t go to work, I go to school. I’m going to ride the school bus.’ ”

Foster said the man, who wasn’t in a vehicle, stayed in the area near the bus stop. “She had to tell him several times, ‘This isn’t OK; you can’t stay here. No, I’m not going with you,’ ” Foster said.

The girl reported the incident to school officials when she arrived at the charter school just after 8 a.m.

It is the latest incident of a child being approached by strangers in the Wyoming Valley in recent months.

Plymouth police reported that a man grabbed a 5-year-old girl playing in her back yard on Mill Street on May 3. The child screamed, alerting her mother, who chased after the man, Plymouth police said.

Wilkes-Barre Area school officials sent letters home to parents after two children separately reported that they were approached by men on March 15.

A student walking on Rose Lane, Wilkes-Barre, near the Heights Murray Elementary School, claimed a man offered her money and attempted to lure her into his vehicle. The girl ran away, city police said at the time.

In the second incident on March 15, city police said a child walking near the Dr. David Kistler Elementary School on Old River Road was approached by a male driver. The man made a comment to draw the child closer to his vehicle, police said.

Edwardsville police arrested Keith Coote, 35, after he allegedly assaulted a Wyoming Valley West third-grade student as she walked to a school bus stop on Church Street on March 10. Coote is facing charges of indecent assault, terroristic threats, corruption of minors and making false reports to law enforcement in Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas, according to court records.