LOCAL BRIEFS

Youth injured
AUSTINTOWN -- Township police are investigating a fight between two juveniles that led to a minor stabbing. Officers were called to a South Main Street home around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Two 15-year-old boys got into a scuffle after the boy who lived there asked the other boy to leave. The visitor refused. The resident tried to physically remove the visitor, who grabbed a knife and cut the resident on the nose and hand. The injured youth did not seek medical treatment.
Man faces drug charges
YOUNGSTOWN -- A 26-year-old city man was charged with possession of cocaine around 8:40 p.m. Tuesday after he tried to hide what they suspect was a rock of cocaine in his mouth, according to police reports. Police were at the intersection of Delaware Avenue and Wirt Street, serving a Youngstown Municipal Court bench warrant and a Mahoning County Grand Jury indictment on Terrence Tillis of 1956 McClure when they saw him chewing. He refused to open his mouth and officers forced him to the ground where he spit out the rock and tried to use his head to bury it in gravel. Police also found a baggie of suspected marijuana and $5 in Tillis' pants pocket. Tillis' outstanding warrant charges him with various motor vehicle violations. The indictment accuses him of possession of cocaine.
Hearings postponed
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Preliminary hearings for three New York men accused of stealing vitamins and bodybuilding supplements in a multi-county theft ring were postponed. Victor M. Garcia, 22, Frederick D. Hornendo, 24, and Gilbert Delgado, 22, were to appear before District Justice J.V. Lamb on Tuesday on charges of retail theft, theft, criminal conspiracy and receiving stolen property, but the state police trooper who arrested the men was called away on a family emergency. The men were arrested Sept. 20 on Interstate 80 by Pennsylvania State Police in Mercer County. Police pulled them over for a traffic violation and found stolen items in their car from the Prime Outlets at Grove City and the General Nutrition Center store in Union Township. Lamb reduced their bond from $20,000 to $10,000 because of the hearing delay. Police said the men face similar charges in Mercer, Crawford and Clarion counties. Police said the men were shoplifting from GNC stores and clothing outlets and apparently intended to sell the stolen items on New York City streets. A new hearing date has not been set.
Police investigation
AUSTINTOWN -- An Austintown woman is being charged with operating an unapproved tattooing or body-piercing business after township police discovered she was giving tattoos in her South Edgehill Avenue home. In a two-week investigation, police officers made an appointment with the woman for a tattoo. When officers showed up to keep the appointment around 6 p.m. Tuesday, the woman was arrested. Neighbors had complained about the people the business attracted. The woman had a state license that had expired.
Man arrested
AUSTINTOWN -- Township police discovered drug paraphernalia after arresting a man for stealing meat at the Rulli Bros. store on Kirk Road around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Reports say the man tried to walk out with six packages of meat when store workers stopped him. Officers who took the man into custody found a cigarette pack in his sock that contained a crack pipe with suspected cocaine residue. Officers also found six white pills and two capsules that have yet to be tested.
Drive-by shooting
YOUNGSTOWN -- An Idlewood Avenue man was in stable condition early today at St. Elizabeth Health Center after being struck twice in his upper left leg Tuesday in a drive-by shooting in the 100 block of West Evergreen Avenue. Police spoke to the victim, Omar J. Robinson, 21, at a Market Street convenience store. Robinson said a passenger in a passing car shot him with a revolver at 10:42 a.m. Police charged Robinson with aggravated trafficking in cocaine after they and hospital security discovered suspected crack cocaine in his pants.