Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The woman said her son was badly beaten by police.
YOUNGSTOWN — The mother of a 17-year-old boy who faces several felony-level charges says her son had nothing to do with the beating and carjacking of an elderly city woman.
Debbie Newell’s son, Dawan Fuller Jr., is in the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center on charges of receiving stolen property, resisting arrest and carrying a concealed weapon after police spotted him and another teen riding in a car stolen from an elderly woman.
The woman was hit with a gun and nearly abducted a few days earlier.
Fuller, who was carrying a loaded .45-caliber handgun, struggled with police and was ultimately struck several times with a gun by officers before being taken into custody.
Capt. Kenneth Centorame of the police department said there have been no charges filed against Fuller concerning the attack on the woman, but he’s not ruling out filing additional charges against him in the future.
“We still have work to do on this case. Our lab processed the car last week, and whatever evidence we find will be turned over to BCI [Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation],” he said.
Newell takes issue with any implication her son was involved in the attack against the elderly woman. She also says police beat her son excessively during his arrest.
Newell said she is certain her son could not have taken part in the carjacking and assault at the elderly woman’s home because he was home with her and his pregnant girlfriend at the time of the crime.
Newell said Fuller was in the car only because an acquaintance who was driving the stolen car offered him a ride home while he was walking and he accepted the offer.
She said her son did not find out the car was stolen until police attempted to pull the car over.
Newell said her son may have been carrying a firearm, but she said the teen is fearful for his safety after her home was shot at by several young men at odds with members of her family.
The teen’s family, Newell said, is more upset with the treatment her son received at the hands of police. She said Fuller required stitches to his face and had been beaten badly when she and other family members saw him in the hospital. She wants something done about the beating.
“I am going to internal affairs and filing a report there. I have already spoken to an attorney who said I do in fact have a case,” she said Monday.
Newell said her son is not interested in divulging any information about the car’s driver, who still has not been caught, to police. She said giving police such information may put her son in danger.
“He doesn’t want to be known as a snitch. A snitch on the street can get my son killed or anything else. I am just not having that,” she said.
Centorame said police are hoping that Fuller would provide that information if he knows anything about anyone involved in the crimes against the elderly woman or the man driving the woman’s stolen car.
“That is the problem we run into with a lot of these cases,” the captain said. “If that were his mom who was beaten don’t you think he would want someone to come forward and tell what happened; I hope the young man decides to cooperate with us.”
jgoodwin@vindy.com