Police: Chaney cheerleading coach resisted arrest

Yes, it’s possible for a person to be injured when resisting arrest, a policeman testified.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — The three police officers in on the arrest of a cheerleading coach at Chaney High School are certain about one thing: She didn’t go quietly.

Trial was to resume today in municipal court for 39-year-old Angela J. Jones of East Ravenwood Avenue. The once-volunteer freshman cheerleading coach is charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of official business.

Jones was arrested at the school Oct. 4, 2007, the day police used pepper spray to break up a large unruly crowd of Chaney students gathered to watch two girls fight.

Jones, who is not a teacher, had her volunteer arrangement at the Hazelwood Avenue school end the day she was arrested.

The case is before Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly.

Testimony Tuesday before a jury of six women and two men established that, before arrest, Jones had a heated argument with Patrolman Rick Baldwin over his interaction with her 18-year-old son, a senior at the school. Some, such as Edna Douglas, a principal and assistant dean, testified that Jones screamed profanities at the officer who was trying to disperse the crowd. Others, like Jones’ son and Remel Williams, cheerleading coach, said she didn’t swear.

Baldwin testified that Jones told him he had no right telling her son what to do, police had no right to use pepper spray on students and students didn’t have to listen to what police were ordering.

Douglas said from the witness stand that she tried to calm Jones down because the kids around her were getting upset. “Kids tend to mirror behavior,” Douglas said.

After the confrontation with Baldwin, Jones was allowed into the school and told to stay with the cheerleaders because the students outside had still not dispersed. Her arrest took place within a minute or so of being let into the school.

Jones allegedly slammed open the door she had entered and, in the process, knocked Patrolman Dave Wilson, standing outside the door, flat on his face. He testified Tuesday that he sprang up and grabbed Jones as she began to retreat into the school through a second set of doors. She yelled and refused to give up her hands for the handcuffs, he said.

Baldwin testified that he saw Jones use the door to shove Wilson down and that Wilson and Patrolman Michael Bodnar took her to the ground when she refused to put her hands behind her back. Under questioning by defense attorney Edward J. Harwtig, Baldwin said neither he nor the other officers punched or kicked Jones during the arrest.

Douglas said she took one girl who had pepper spray in her eye to a restroom and then, once back outside, saw that the situation was out of control with some girls screaming profanities and showing no respect. She tried to calm down Jones’ son when police escorted his mother to a cruiser.

Patrolman Malik Mostella, who used pepper spray in order to get through the crowd that surrounded the fighting girls, said he saw Jones and Baldwin in a heated discussion when Baldwin was trying to disperse the crowd, but didn’t witness Jones’ arrest.

Mostella, who grew up with Jones, said he saw her at the jail later that night and she had a dark bruise on one eye. When questioned by Bret Hartup, assistant city prosecutor, Mostella acknowledged that it’s possible for a person to be injured when resisting arrest.

Charges of felonious assault on a police officer and misdemeanor counts of failure to disperse and misconduct at an emergency against Jones were dismissed before trial. The felony charge was dismissed after Wilson was unable to identify Jones during a preliminary hearing, according to Vindicator files.