YOUNGSTOWN Task force director to retire

Dave Allen was shot during a confrontation with three robbers in 1973.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- In front of Dave Allen's desk, hanging on the plain off-white wall of his office, is a color map of Youngstown marked with red and black dots.
A few of the dots are clustered in the blocks near Cleveland Street and Chalmers Avenue on the South Side.
Most, however, are spread evenly throughout every section of the city.
Each dot represents a search or arrest by the Mahoning Valley Drug Task Force.
"The main problem in the Valley that crosses all borders is narcotics," said Allen, the director of the task force. "They're the reason for everything. You can almost tie all your crime back to narcotics."
Long career
Allen, 59, has spent much of his 33-year career as a police officer working to stem the flow of drugs through the Valley. On Jan. 6, he will retire as a lieutenant with the Austintown police. He has not decided if he will remain task force director.
"The time is right," Allen said. "I've been in so many drug raids I can't even count."
Allen said he and his wife recently moved from Austintown to Ellsworth.
"It's a five- or six-minute drive to the golf course, instead of a 35-minute drive," he joked.
The task force is an organization of officers from several local police departments that focuses on reducing violent crimes associated with drug trafficking in Mahoning County. Last year, task force officers performed a total of 764 searches, made 782 arrests, and confiscated $186,936.
The drugs they seized had a total estimated value of $1.4 million to $2.9 million.
"The accomplishments of this unit are unbelievable," Allen said. He noted that, in the years since he first became a police officer, "the cases have all grown larger."
Allen added that he isn't sure why he decided to become a police officer.
"That just came out of the blue," he said.
Becoming a cop
A South Side native, Allen moved with his family to Austintown when he was in eighth grade. He graduated from Cardinal Mooney High School and entered the Navy in 1961.
After receiving an honorable discharge in 1963, he took a job with the former Youngstown Steel Door company on Henricks Road. In 1969, he decided to take the exam to become a police officer.
He was soon hired as a part-time officer in Austintown.
"My father convinced me to [work part time] first. That way, if I didn't like it, I'd still have my job," he said.
But he loved his new occupation, and in 1970 he was hired to work full time.
It didn't take long for Allen to make a name for himself. In 1971, he received a community award for helping to arrest a gang that operated in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties. The arrests led police to solve several cases, including 50 breaking and enterings, 10 arsons and several car thefts.
When he first became a cop, the drug problem was beginning to grow in the suburbs. "Things got really wild," he said.
Heroin was popular, and use of the hallucinogen PCP was beginning to spread. Cocaine was believed to be a recreational drug with no long-term effects, he said.
Robbery call
In February 1973, Allen was sitting in a restaurant on Mahoning Avenue waiting for information about a shipment of heroin when a call about an armed robbery came over the wrong frequency on his radio. He and his partner, Ronald Sauce, went to a house on Avalon Court to investigate.
"It's a hard night to forget," Allen said.
It was a cold and windy winter night and the ground was icy, he said. The residents of the Avalon Court house were business owners who were known to bring large amounts of money home from work, Allen said.
Allen stood on the side of the home while Sauce knocked on the back door.
According to Vindicator records, the woman who lived at the home opened the door and said, "My God, they're in the bedroom now and they're going to kill my husband and grandson!" A gunman then came toward the door and pointed a gun at Sauce and the woman.
Allen ran to the back door as Sauce pulled the woman out of the house. Sauce then shot twice at the robber, hitting him once. The robber staggered back in the house.
Shootout
"We got involved in a helluva shootout," Allen said. "The neighbors were calling saying it sounded like Vietnam over there."
The robbers retreated into the house, and Allen and Sauce ran to the front door. Allen said he slid past the door on some ice.
As he slid, the robbers came out of the front door carrying the infant grandson of the couple who lived in the home. They began to shoot at the two police officers.
"They had the baby in between them, and they opened fire, and that's when they hit me," he said.
Allen was shot in the left bicep. Bullets also grazed his face and head.
"Part of it is still in there," Allen said, pointing to his left bicep. He said he has arthritis as a result of the bullet fragment.
With Allen and Sauce near the front door, the robbers ran out the back door with the man who lived in the house. The baby was left in the house.
The robbers released the man a few blocks away.
Allen said he wasn't scared until after the shooting, when he was put in an ambulance and taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center. He was released from the hospital that night.
The three robbers were later arrested, and Allen took a short vacation before returning to the department.
Rising in the ranks
In 1975, Allen was promoted to detective sergeant. He eventually became the head of Austintown's detective division.
Allen noted that at the time, the Mafia was "pretty much in control of things," including the courts.
"The court system has been frustrating as a cop," Allen said. He said some of the cases against suspects he arrested disappeared in the court system.
Allen continued to focus much of his work on drug-related crime. He worked with the Mahoning-Trumbull-Ashtabula drug unit in the 1970s and the drug task force in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Austintown Township trustees allowed him to work out of the drug task force office full-time.
"He knew his stuff when it came to drugs and the laws of arrest," said Austintown Lt. Joe Giampietro. "What I learned about drugs, I learned from him."
Allen said the biggest drug case of his career came in 1990, when a year-long investigation led to the arrest of Kevin Young of Youngstown.
The investigation began when a man arrested in Austintown on disorderly conduct charges provided police with information about area drug trafficking. Police eventually arrested Young as well as 10 other people, and seized 17 kilograms of cocaine and $350,000.
At the time, it was considered the largest drug arrest in Mahoning Valley history. Young later pleaded guilty to several charges in federal court.
Became director
In the mid-1990s, Allen was asked to replace the director of the drug task force, who was retiring. At first Allen said no.
"I did enjoy it a lot on the streets," he said. "I still do miss it occasionally."
The retiring director, however, eventually persuaded Allen to take the job.
"Now, I'm the meeting guy," Allen said.
Lt. William Powell, the commander of the Youngstown vice squad and deputy director of the drug task force, said Allen's experience and motivational skills make him an effective director.
"Dave's not only a good friend, I believe him to be a natural leader," Powell said.
The Ohio Task Force Commanders Association selected Allen to serve a two-year term as its director in 2001. He will remain as director until next November.
Allen said the law enforcement officials from around the state who are members of the association meet every few months and discuss the crimes that have occurred in their communities. He said the meetings help him predict what type of drugs and crime might be headed into the Mahoning Valley.
"Methamphetamine is next," Allen said. The addictive stimulant has been coming into Ohio through the southeast section of the state and has caused a recent arrest in nearby Summit County, he said.
hill@vindy.com