Monday, March 26, 2012
LIBERTY — Police officers with the U.S. Marshal’s Task Force arrested Charles Hill, 36, near the Tally Ho-tel on Belmont Avenue in Liberty at around 2:30 p.m. after hours of searching. He has been placed in the Trumbull County jail.
Hill escaped on foot from officers into the woods near the Ivy Hill condominium complex, which is near the Bazetta Township Walmart, at about 10:30 a.m. The pursuit began in vehicles when members of the Youngstown unit of the U.S. Marshals Task Force chased him from the Elm Road Plaza while trying to arrest him on a search warrant out of West Virginia.
During the chase, Hill tried to run over task force officers, who then fired their weapons at him. Authorities do not believe Hill was hit by the gunfire.
A woman believed to be a female friend of Hill was in the car with Hill during the chase. She got out of the car when Hill stopped it in the Ivy Hill/Woodland Trails neighborhood and refused to run with him, a witness said.
Residents of the Ivy Hill/Woodland Trails condominium development said they didn’t see the silver Chrysler minivan as it came to a stop in front of one of the condominiums, but Hill apparently got out and fled into the woods nearby.
The van could be seen parked in front of a condominium at the corner of Eagle’s Loft and Trapper’s Trail with a blown-out tire and body damage on the other side of the vehicle.
Brian Jenkins, who was visiting his mother in her Eagle’s Loft condominium, said he talked to the woman after Hill had run into the woods, and the woman told him she refused to run with Hill.
“She said she was with him. He could have shot her, killed her,” Jenkins said she told him. She said she didn’t want to run with him, so when they got out of he van, she screamed to alert someone in the neighborhood to what was happening.
For details, keep watching Vindy.com and see Tuesday's Vindicator.