Friday, November 24, 2006
The children had been playing outside before being struck.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
YOUNGSTOWN -- Tragedy disrupted the holiday peace in a quiet North Side neighborhood, sending three children to the hospital and police on a search for an unidentified man.
By 7:30 p.m. Thursday, police had blocked off the corner of Cordova and Granada avenues with yellow police tape. A heavily damaged vehicle rested in the yard of the brick house at the intersection. The clothing of several young children lay strewn about.
Residents of nearby homes stood in the cold, piecing together details of what happened minutes earlier.
Those details were still unclear to police officers as of late Thursday.
Capt. Michael Vodilko of the Youngstown Police Department said Liberty police officers had been chasing the man driving the car that sat in the front yard of the house. He said the officers lost sight of the car minutes before the driver made his way down Granada.
Police chase
Vodilko said the car came down Granada at a high rate of speed, sideswiping another car that was disabled and blocking part of the street.
He said that after sideswiping the disabled vehicle, the car hit a tree and then struck three children playing in a yard near the intersection.
The driver of the car immediately jumped out and ran away. Vodilko said the only description is a man wearing a hooded sweat shirt.
The condition of the children, ages 3, 6 and 7, was not known at press time, but all three were taken to nearby hospital emergency rooms. Vodilko said the accident and injuries appeared to be serious. Several ambulances were dispatched to the scene.
Says car was stolen
One woman standing in a nearby crowd said the vehicle driven by the man wearing the hooded sweat shirt was her car. She said it had been stolen from a convenience store in Liberty minutes before the accident. Vodilko said the woman left before officers could verify the claim.
Vodilko said Liberty police were investigating what is believed to be a drug house, but he was unsure of where the house might be or if the man driving the car was coming from that house.
Vodilko said officers did find a gun in the vehicle, but he did not believe any shots were fired during the episode.
A woman who lives near the area of the accident said the neighborhood is filled with children who normally play peacefully outside. She noticed the kids playing minutes before the accident when she returned from a trip to the store and meant to call police about the disabled vehicle in the street, but she did not do so before the accident.