Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN — Police say they quickly apprehended the man who made false bomb threats involving several downtown buildings Monday morning.

The man called 911 at about 8:30 a.m., saying there were bombs in the county courthouse, Youngstown Police Department and George V. Voinovich Government Center on West Federal Street.

But when Dion Taylor, 25, was questioned a short time after the call was made, Taylor said the threat was false and he only made the call to “buy time” because he thought the U.S. Marshal’s Service was trying to find and arrest him, said Lt. Frank Rutherford of the Youngstown Police Department.

Taylor was among two men walking in the area of the Marshall Street bridge when officers approached them, aware of the threat call.

One officer “noticed by the way they were looking at (the officers) that there was something suspicious,” Rutherford said.

Taylor told the officer his phone was disconnected. It is the kind of phone that was used for the 911 call, Rutherford said.

When the officer looked at Taylor’s phone, he had used it to make two 911 calls.

Taylor was taken to the hospital when he complained of chest pains. He had not been booked into the Mahoning County jail as of late Monday.

Various buildings were searched after the call, but none was evacuated, officials said.

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