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Teen driver in deadly crash had brushes with law
YOUNGSTOWN
The 16-year-old accused of driving a stolen car that slammed into an SUV last week, killing a child, has had several encounters with law enforcement.
Allen J. Thompson, 16, of Trumbull Court, is in the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center on Scott Street on a charge of receiving stolen property. He also had a pickup order for an undisclosed crime in juvenile court when he was arrested.
Thompson was taken into custody after the Thursday night South Side accident that killed 9-year-old Da’Shawn Johnson of Youngstown.
Da’Shawn was riding in a Ford Explorer on West Boston Avenue with his 27-year-old mother, Tammy Sadler of Youngstown, at 11:21 p.m. when a Ford Taurus driven by Thompson went through a stop sign at Hudson Avenue and hit the truck. The mother and an 11-year-old girl were taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center, but Johnson was ejected from the car and killed.
Lt. Brian Butler of the police department’s internal-affairs division said Thompson was driving a car reported stolen on Market Street, and he was trying to elude police when the accident took place. Internal affairs is investigating.
Thompson was mentioned in a 2010 police report in which he was accused of assaulting a 23-year-old North Side woman during a disagreement over the volume of a radio.
Reports say Thompson and the woman, who is a relative of Thompson’s legal guardian’s boyfriend, were in the same North Side house when she asked him to turn down the volume on a radio he had been using. The woman told police she eventually turned the volume down, but this upset Thompson and led to the assault.
The woman told police Thompson hit her in the head with an air pump, then struck her in the face multiple times with a glass ashtray. The woman said the attack continued with Thompson punching her in the face and kicking her in the head.
Police said the woman was bleeding from near her eye and had two bumps on her head.
Thompson had also been listed as a runaway juvenile in June 2010. He was returned to his home after police were called when he showed up at an aunt’s house to take a nap. He had been gone for three days, reports say.
Thompson was also the victim in a 2008 assault where he was attacked by a group of juveniles. Police reports say Thompson was punched in the left eye and suffered a bloodied nose from the July attack on West Lucius Avenue.