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Driver sought after car drags officer
YOUNGSTOWN
Police are looking for a 46-year-old city man who they say used his car to drag a police officer in a scene reminiscent of an incident that led to the shooting of an 18-year-old man.
According to police reports, officers on the South Side noticed a man leave a known drug house on West LaClede Avenue late Thursday and get into the driver’s seat of a car that contained two other people.
The car failed to stop at a stop sign and signal a turn, leading officers to conduct a traffic stop, reports said.
Reports say Officer Patrick Mulligan asked the man to step out of his car and produce a license. The man reportedly opened the car door and began to step out of the car but then slammed the door shut and began to pull off as Mulligan was reaching into the car to turn off the ignition.
Reports say the driver took off with Mulligan hanging out the vehicle’s window. Police said the driver also swerved the vehicle several times in an attempt to shake off the officer.
Mulligan was thrown from the vehicle after about 25 feet then ran back to his patrol car and chased the fleeing man.
Police found the car crashed into a fence on Reel and Indianola avenues. The driver had run off, but officers found his driver’s license inside the vehicle.
The two other people in the car were questioned and released. Police are looking for the driver, described as a white male, 6 feet tall, weighing 155 pounds with brown hair and eyes.
The dragging is reminiscent of an incident in the parking lot of a South Side bar in August.
According to a police report, Cory Timmings was shot in the parking lot of Pal Joey’s, a bar on East Midlothian Boulevard, at 2:36 a.m. Aug. 21. Officer Phil Chance was helping to break up a fight and disperse a large crowd at the bar when the shooting occurred.
The officer shouted to Timmings to lower the music coming from his car, the police report said. Rather than turn down the music, Timmings drove toward Chance, hitting the officer and forcing him up on the car’s hood, the report said.
According to the report, Timmings wouldn’t stop even though Chance, who rolled off to the driver’s side, told the man that he was under arrest.
Chance reached inside the car, trying to turn off the ignition. Timmings then increased his speed, dragging Chance, the report said.
The officer, who said he believed his life was in danger, pulled out his gun and fired a shot inside the car toward the driver. Timmings, shot in the upper back, sped away, but his car was pulled over by police on Lake Park Drive.
A departmental investigation cleared Chance of any wrongdoing, but the FBI has requested files in the case.
Timmings was later convicted of DUI and obstructing official business. He will be sentenced Wednesday. His attorney said he plans to file a civil lawsuit in the matter.