John A. Drusts is being held on $500,000 bond.

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A convicted sex offender attempted to abduct a 4-year-old girl from Santa Cruz Catholic Church Sunday morning but was stopped by alert parishioners, including the girl's father, police said.

The man entered a multipurpose room at the church about 11 a.m. and saw the girl with her 7-year-old brother. The man, who police identified as John Arthur Drusts, picked up the girl and attempted to leave the church property, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

A woman in the kitchen saw Drusts pick up the girl and shouted at other parishioners. The girl's father confronted Drusts and was able to grab his daughter and pull her away while others surrounded Drusts.

"He was steps away from making it out into an alleyway, and he would've been gone," Pacheco said.

Police officers were one block away when they saw the call come up on their patrol car computer and found Drusts surrounded when they arrived at the church, 1220 S. Sixth Ave., Pacheco said.

Drusts, 56, was arrested and booked into the Pima County jail on felony charges of kidnapping, failure to register as a sex offender and failure to carry identification, which is also required of convicted sex offenders. He is held on $500,000 bond.

Drusts, who gave police an address in the 8100 block of West Pueblo Vista Avenue, was last registered at a Phoenix address despite living in Tucson for the past two years, Pacheco said.

Drusts is a level 2, or intermediate, offender with convictions for child molestation and sexual assault in California and Montana, according to the Arizona Sex Offender InfoCenter.