Police arrest suspect in Liberty after 4-hour hunt
Hill
By Ed Runyan
Liberty
The man who led authorities on an hours-long chase began the episode by attempting to run over members of the U.S. Marshals Task Force, who responded by firing their weapons at his minivan.
Police officers working with the task force finally arrested Charles S. Hill, 36, near the Tally Ho-tel on Belmont Avenue in Liberty around 2:30 p.m. Monday after an exhaustive four-hour search.
Hill, who has had recent addresses in Alliance, Sebring, Girard and Hubbard Township, has been placed in the Trumbull County jail. As of Monday afternoon, no charges related to the chase had been filed against him.
Hill escaped on foot from officers into the woods near the Ivy Hill neighborhood, which is near the Bazetta Township Walmart, 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 theft warrant out of West Virginia.
During the chase, when Hill tried to run over task-force officers, they fired their weapons at him, according to a press release from the U.S. Marshals office. Authorities do not believe Hill was hit by the gunfire.
A woman believed to be a friend of Hill’s was in the vehicle with Hill during the chase. She got out 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 neighborhood 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 an condominium at the corner of Eagle’s Loft and Trapper’s Trail with a blown-out tire and body damage on its side.
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. The woman said she screamed after getting out of the van to alert someone in the neighborhood to what was happening.
There were conflicting stories Monday as to whether Hill was armed with a weapon.
Police believed Hill was armed while they were chasing him in part because they heard what sounded like gunfire coming from the woods, the U.S. Marshals said.
Police searched the wooded area between Ivy Hill and Walmart for Hill. Walmart and several other businesses in the area went into lockdown. There were several instances in which police were advised of Hill’s location, such as the rear of Walmart and near the Sheetz gas station a mile south of there, but he was not found.
Tim Bowers, Warren police chief, said several of his officers were part of the team that located Hill in Liberty. The officers said they didn’t know how Hill got from Bazetta to Liberty.
Dozens of police from across the county assisted with the search, including officers with dogs.
Patti Bartolo, who lives at the condominium where the van came to a stop with a U.S. Marshals sport-utility vehicle parked behind it, said she knows of no reason why Hill picked her condominium to stop his vehicle.
Hill was sentenced to 33 months in prison in Stark County in 2007 on theft convictions. He was convicted of petty theft in Mahoning County in March 2008.
Trumbull County jail records say Hill was born in Alliance and was arrested by Girard police in October 2010 on a domestic-violence charge while he was living in the 500 block of North State Street.
Girard Municipal Court records say he pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to 12 days in jail and one year of probation.
Hill also was charged with assault in September 2010 for reportedly spitting at a man in the parking lot of the IGA store in Girard.
He was charged with theft and criminal damaging in August 2010 for reportedly taking items belonging to another man with whom he was living in the 7000 block of Price Shaffer Road in Hubbard Township.
In July 2010, he was held in the Trumbull County jail on a felony charge of being a fugitive from justice.