Buckle-up campaign

Buckle-up campaign
The Ohio State Highway Patrol and Ohio High School Athletic Association are partnering with a simple message for the upcoming fall sports season: Buckle up for a successful season. The statewide partnership involves patrol posts and nearly all of the OHSAA's 833-member high schools in a coordinated community-level traffic safety effort to coincide with high school athletic events. Student athletes, coaches, cheerleaders, band members and fans are encouraged to use their safety belts when going to school, practices and games. In 2003, nearly 69 percent of the 201 young people ages 16 to 20 killed in crashes in Ohio were not wearing a safety belt, the patrol said.
Charged in rape
BOARDMAN -- Township police have charged a 21-year old township man with raping a 6-year-old girl. Theodore Christopher Stanley was arrested on a warrant at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday at his West Boulevard home. Police received a call July 9 about a rape that had occurred at the girl's home July 3. Stanley's court date is set for Aug. 31 in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Mailbox blown up
BOARDMAN -- Township police are investigating the vandalism of a mailbox on Trotwood Drive. According to police reports, the residential mailbox was destroyed by an explosive device Tuesday. No one was injured.
Drug charge
YOUNGSTOWN -- Kenneth Cochrane Jr., 27, of Northgate Avenue, Liberty, was arrested on a charge of aggravated trafficking in crack cocaine after being stopped by police Tuesday night on the North Side for having no lights on his rear license plate. Police said they saw the car stopped in the middle of the street on Covington Avenue around 10:30 p.m. Police pursued the car as it drove off and pulled it over. A bag of suspected crack was on the gear-shift console and seven more bags were found inside a dog-food carton, reports show.
Charges in fireworks case
YOUNGSTOWN -- A Mahoning County grand jury will consider charges against three Boardman men arrested after what police described as a July 4 fireworks riot on the South Side that included officers' being injured.
Carmelo Morales Jr., 23, is charged with two counts of assault. Carmelo Morales Sr., 40, is charged with one count of assault. Jonathan Morales, 19, is charged with aggravated riot and two counts of assault. The charges were bound over to a grand jury Tuesday by Municipal Judge Robert P. Milich.
Career criminal arrested
YOUNGSTOWN -- A 45-year-old career criminal with 49 arrests dating to 1978 is a federal prisoner in Mahoning County jail after being apprehended Monday morning in a parking lot in the 1100 block of Otis Street.
Willie R. Lowery was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force on a federal charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm; charges of carrying a concealed weapon and possessing a weapon while on probation, both from Trumbull County; and three theft charges, one each from Salem, Boardman and Mercer County.
Lowery, whose last known address was on Palmyra Road in Warren, has had 18 known aliases, said Dean Michael, task force coordinator. Lowery's prior convictions include robbery, burglary, felonious assault, forgery, theft and drug and weapons offenses, Michael said.
Man wins top prize
WARREN -- A Warren man has won the top prize of $100,000 in the Ohio Lottery's online kicker game. Robert E. Walker, who filed a claim in the lottery's Youngstown office Tuesday afternoon, will get $71,500 after federal and state withholding taxes for selecting the winning number, 1-9-4-4-4-0, in the July 24 drawing.
He bought his winning ticket at Dairy Mart, 606 N. Park Ave., Warren, which will get a $1,000 agent bonus for selling it. The odds of matching all six numbers are one in 1 million.
Stolen truck found
STRUTHERS -- Police recovered a tow truck stolen from Niles after a resident reported the vehicle suspiciously parked near his Youngstown-Poland Road business.
The business owner told police Monday that the truck had been parked in the lot at 7061/2 Youngstown-Poland Road since Aug. 18.
The green 1986 Ford F-35 belonging to Jay's Auto Repair had been reported stolen Aug. 16.