Youth arrested in assault, carjacking of woman

By John W. Goodwin Jr.

YOUNGSTOWN — Police arrested a 17-year-old in the assault and carjacking of a woman, after wresting a loaded handgun from him.

Officers spotted the woman’s stolen four-door Saturn traveling in the Ravenwood Avenue and Southern Boulevard area with two male teens inside. When officers attempted to stop the car, both teens jumped out and ran.

Officers caught up to one of the boys on East Avondale. The boy had his hand in his pants, and when officers grabbed him, they discovered he was trying to pull out a gun.

Officers’ repeated orders to let go of the gun were met with obscenities from the teen, who refused to take his hand off the weapon. One officer, while wrestling with the boy over the gun, struck him several times with a forearm, causing a cut above the boy’s eye.

Other officers arrived to help subdue the boy. Officers eventually were able to wrest the gun away and place him in handcuffs after striking him in the shoulder to force the boy to release his hold.

He is being held in the Mahoning County Juvenile Justice Center on felony charges of receiving stolen property, resisting arrest and carrying a concealed weapon.

The car in which the teen was riding was taken from the 70-year-old Ravenwood Avenue woman Wednesday.

The woman was pistol-whipped by one of two young male robbers and would-be kidnappers who confronted her as she arrived home from work at 11:45 p.m.

As she got out of her car in her driveway, one of the men hit her on the head with a handgun and dragged her out of her car, she told police.

Both men asked her for her bank PIN, and she told them she didn’t have one. The robbers demanded that she open her trunk, then used her key to open it themselves and tried to force her into the trunk, the woman told police.

The woman screamed, and a neighbor left a nearby residence, startling the robbers, who flung her against the side of her house before fleeing in the her car, taking her keys and pager.

As they backed out of her driveway, the robbers tried to hit the woman with her car, she told police.

“Have a nice day,” a robber yelled from the car, according to the victim and her neighbor.

The victim was treated for bleeding from her lip and a large knot on her forehead.

jgoodwin@vindy.com