MAHONING COUNTY Task force relentlessly pursues fugitives

The task force, featured on 'America's Most Wanted,' has made 3,000 arrests.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Mahoning Valley Violent Crimes Task Force has found fugitives curled up in a clothes dryer, crammed under a kitchen floorboard, stuffed in an end table, squeezed under a sink and packed in a cupboard above a refrigerator.
"About one-third will hide somewhere. We take a team and do a search room by room. Sometimes we use a dog," said FBI Special Agent Lee Hopper, coordinator of the unit. "Sometimes we use tear gas -- it works very well."
Once a fugitive is located, usually in a house, the task force -- dressed in black raid shirts or jackets with bright yellow lettering -- surrounds the dwelling and seals the street off to traffic.
"We want everyone to know who we are -- including the bad guys," Hopper said of the black uniforms. He said safety for everyone is paramount.
Contact with the fugitive, whether by shouts, phone or public address system, brings out a "good portion" of those being sought, Hopper said. Fugitives not inclined to open the door will find it pushed in by the black-clad officers, who approach from behind a ballistic shield.
Most of those unwilling to surrender sprint for the attic to hide, others scurry to the cellar. Once in a while, they get creative, like one hefty 6-foot-3-inch fugitive who somehow managed to wedge himself under a small kitchen sink, Hopper recalled with a grin.
3,000 arrests
The task force, beginning its 12th year, recently passed the 3,000-arrest milestone. The unit hunts those wanted on warrants that charge murder, rape, armed robbery and so forth.
FBI Special Agent John Kane, in charge of the bureau's Boardman office, said an awards ceremony for the task force is planned for later this month. He said the task force is a model for others around the country.
The team consists of full- and part-time police officers on loan from their respective departments. Participants are the FBI, Mahoning County Sheriff's Department, Ohio Adult Parole Authority, Mill Creek MetroParks, Hubbard (city), Youngstown, Boardman, Austintown, Canfield, Struthers, Youngstown State University, Campbell and Poland Township.
"When we started, there were 5,000 violent fugitive warrants," Hopper said. "We'd get 25 warrants a week; now it's down to three."
The cooperative effort is effective because no one agency can do it alone, Hopper said. Most violent-crime arrests are made in Mahoning County, specifically in Youngstown, he said.
"A lot of people don't know what we do," Hopper said. "For every arrest, we probably search four houses, put our lives on the line all the time."
The task force doesn't seek publicity, he said.
Featured on national TV
Publicity, though, came along when the TV show "America's Most Wanted" featured the task force's September 2003 arrest of fugitive Mark Samples in Columbiana County. Show host John Walsh said Samples used a gun in May 2001 to rob a bank in Red Wing, Minn., then rode a bike to the river, donned scuba gear and swam away.
Samples was caught and posted bond but then, in May 2002, fled for parts unknown, taking his 21/2 year-old son with him. Walsh said thousands of leads poured in to the show and one tip led to the capture.
The show was blacked out locally last fall because of a Youngstown State University football game, Hopper said.
The "America's Most Wanted" segment shows Hopper re-enacting a briefing before the task force converged on a house in the tiny town of East Rochester, where Samples had been living with his son. Samples was doing yardwork when the fugitive team arrived.
"Captures like that make me so proud of this show," Walsh told his TV audience. "Great work!"
All in a day's work
Kane said agents from an FBI office in Minnesota passed on information they received about Samples. "These guys do this every day," Kane said of the local team that specializes in hunting fugitives.
Interviews are often done in this area for FBI offices around the country, said FBI Special Agent John Lichtefeld, supervisor of the task force. On any given day, some members are in court and others out conducting interviews or raids.
To the task force, the most sought-after fugitive was Martin L. Koliser Jr., who fled to Florida after shooting a city patrolman to death in April 2003. He was apprehended within about 30 hours.
"It was a textbook case," Hopper said. "Everyone came together, the search went up and down the East Coast."
Each Sunday, The Vindicator features the task force's fugitive of the week. "Over the years it's been very successful," Hopper said.
He said the vast majority of people want to help law enforcement track down fugitives, including fugitives' family members who fear for their safety on the streets. Some tipsters are motivated by a reward.
Criminal profiles
John Beshara, a sergeant with the Mahoning County Sheriff's Department, said most of those being sought on murder warrants are men in their early 20s. Older men are more into property crimes, he said.
Within the task force is a gang unit. Violent gangs, which peaked in the mid-1990s, slowed for a few years and now are picking up again, said Youngstown Detective Sgt. John Elberty.
"It seems everything stems from drugs," he said. "The gangs are pretty loosely formed now, not as regimented as they used to be."
Elberty said that, because of specialized training, there are few instances when use of force is necessary to arrest a fugitive.
"We never give them anything to try," he said. "They can't do anything but give up."