Grand jury gets case of man accused of assault at gas station

By Ed Runyan

A clerk said a customer was defending her when he got slammed into the floor.

AUSTINTOWN — A 24-year-old Austintown man was bound over to the Mahoning County grand jury on a charge that he picked up a 48-year-old customer at the Shell True North gas station on South Raccoon Road and threw him head-first to the floor March 6.

David M. Sletvold of Rockwell Road waived a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Mahoning County Court here on a charge of felonious assault. Judge David D’Apolito continued Sletvold’s bond at $100,000. Sletvold remains in the Mahoning County Jail.

Austintown police said Sletvold had been arguing with his girlfriend outside of the gas station, then continued yelling as he entered the gas station. A clerk inside asked him to leave, causing him to advance toward her and say, “Oh really. What are you going to do about it?”

At that point, customer Daniel Grubbs of Burkey Road stepped in and asked Sletvold to leave.

Sletvold approached Grubbs and asked him, “What are you going to do, old man?” He then picked Grubbs up and “body slammed him head first onto the floor,” the clerk said.

Grubbs was treated at a nearby hospital and released the same night for a bump and scratches on his head.

The clerk, who asked that her name not be used, credited Grubbs with saving her from being attacked.

“If [Grubbs] wouldn’t have come in, I probably would have gotten slammed to the floor,” the woman said. She said Grubbs “was defending me because [Sletvold] was being aggressive toward me. Daniel said, ‘The lady asked you to leave.’” The two pushed each other just before Grubbs was slammed, she added.

“He was trying to protect me,” she said. “I felt bad. I gave him a hug,” she said.

The clerk said Grubbs comes into the store three to four times per day and walks with a cane.

Grubbs knows all of the clerks by name. “He’s a total sweetheart,” she said.

The clerk said she normally works inside a protective glass room but was out in the store working with merchandise when the confrontation occurred. When she saw Grubbs get attacked, she went inside the room, closed the door, and called police.

Police knew Sletvold’s identity and issued a warrant for his arrest.

Two days later, Sletvold was shot in the groin by a man he knew inside a home on Emery Avenue in Youngstown. Sletvold told police LeKeth Brooks, 22, of Ash Street, attempted to take his money and shot him with a rifle. Sletvold was treated at St. Elizabeth Health Center for his injuries.

Youngstown police later charged Brooks with felonious assault and being a felon not allowed to have firearms after they found him in the Emery Avenue home along with a shotgun and a rifle.

Austintown Detective Kathy Dina said her department was notified that Sletvold was in St. Elizabeth’s. When Sletvold was healthy enough to be released about five days later, Austintown police took him from the hospital to the Mahoning County Jail, Dina said.

Sletvold was convicted in Mahoning County Juvenile Court in 2001 when he was 18 for drug trafficking. He was arrested as part of an investigation of drug trafficking among Austintown Fitch students. Sletvold received a six-month suspended sentence in a state youth facility and probation.

runyan@vindy.com