YOUNGSTOWN Police chase brings charges

YOUNGSTOWN -- The chase started when a police sergeant attempted to warn a 35-year-old Girard man and two boys that they shouldn't drive all-terrain vehicles on West Side streets.
It ended with the man's arrest on misdemeanor charges and a felony drug charge.
Sgt. John A. Fields said he saw two ATVs on Waverly Avenue near Randolph Street at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday. One was driven by the adult, the other by his 10-year-old son with an 11-year-old passenger, police reports show.
Fields asked the adult driver to pull over. He said he intended to issue a verbal warning about the illegality of driving the vehicles on city streets.
The man told the juvenile driver not to stop. Fields asked them to stop two more times during a two-car police chase that followed. Both times the man ordered the boy to keep driving.
During the chase on Waverly Avenue, the ATV driven by the adult jumped curbs and drove on grass, once colliding with the juvenile's ATV and causing the boy to momentarily lose control, police reports say. Fields said he had to drive his cruiser over a curb to avoid hitting the youths.
The two ATVs then headed toward railroad tracks near Broadview Avenue and the older driver jumped the tracks, but the juvenile stalled while attempting to cross, bringing the chase to an end, police said.
Charges: The Girard man and his son were cited for prohibited operation of an ATV on city streets. The father also was charged with two counts of endangering children and one count of failure to comply with a police order by fleeing and eluding, all misdemeanors.
After police took the father to the Mahoning County Justice Center, they found a wooden pipe bowl containing suspected marijuana beneath a cruiser seat, the reports says.
At the jail, a deputy discovered a pipe piece containing suspected marijuana residue. The man was charged with conveyance of a prohibited item into a detention facility, a third-degree felony.