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Mother puts gun in son’s bookbag
YOUNGSTOWN
A 26-year-old woman is in the Mahoning County jail on $85,000 bond facing charges that she hid a loaded gun in her 10-year-old son’s bookbag on a WRTA bus.
Shana Starks of Lake Drive in Youngstown was arraigned Monday by Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly of Youngstown Municipal Court on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, having a weapon under disability and child endangerment.
A preliminary hearing for Starks is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Monday.
Police said officers were called by security guards at the WRTA bus terminal on West Federal Street at 7:30 p.m. Friday for a woman on a bus with a loaded gun. A bus driver had told the guards about the woman, describing what she was wearing.
The security guards asked Starks if they could search her 10-year-old son’s bookbag, which she permitted, police say. They found a loaded .38-caliber handgun, police said.
Earlier, a bus driver told the security guards that the woman had robbed a teenage boy of his Sony PSP handheld game system after she lifted her coat and showed him a gun in her waistband, according to a police report.
The boy told the bus driver that he gave her the PSP, but was scared and didn’t want to do anything about it, the report states.
When Starks was arrested, her son had the PSP, and he told officers that an unidentified man had given it to him earlier, the report states.
Starks has prior convictions for theft, forgery and obstruction of official business, according to Mahoning County court records.