Man arrested for threatening cop

By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

youngstown

A man who once was arrested for causing a standoff at a fire scene was taken into custody about 8:10 p.m. Wednesday for purportedly threatening a police officer.

William Pietz, 36, of Imperial Street, was arrested in a driveway at 149 E. Delason Ave. and taken to the Mahoning County jail on several charges, including driving under suspension, drug abuse, intimidation of a public servant, illegal cultivation of marijuana, failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer and a warrant for failure to appear in Municipal Court.

Reports said an officer tried to stop a car Pietz was driving on Ellenwood Avenue for not having a front license plate. Instead, he failed to stop and led the officer to the East Delason Avenue home, pulling into the driveway at such a high rate of speed that he blew a tire when he hit the curb.

Reports said Pietz pulled up next to a dog and told the officers he was a “five-time felon” and would not comply with orders to get on the ground because he was on private property. He said if the officer came closer he would have the dog kill the officer. He only obeyed when he was threatened with a Taser, reports said.

Reports said Pietz yelled at the officer and swore constantly and had to be manhandled to a cruiser, and even there, he would not put his legs in the back seat until he was warned he would be tazed, reports said.

When asked for his name, Pietz told the officer, who now had backup, that he didn’t have to tell him anything and he is a “five-time felon with a great lawyer,” “reports said. Pietz also told the officer he was lucky he never got inside because he had a large cache of weapons and would have used them to kill the officer, “reports said.

Officers found a bag of suspected marijuana on “him and two marijuana plants growing in his yard, reports said.

In June of 2007, Pietz was one of three men who caused a standoff by threatening firefighters who were at a vacant house fire on “East Delason Avenue. He held “police at bay for three hours until he was shot in the buttocks with a beanbag round. He surrendered a short time later. He was sentenced to a year in prison on a charge of obstructing official business for that incident.

Reports said Pietz came into his front yard about 45 minutes after firefighters arrived and waved an object in the air that looked like an assault rifle, and firefighters took cover behind their trucks and called police, who in turn responded with the Mahoning Valley Crisis Response Team’s armored vehicle, and it took three hours to get him out of his house.

Court records show Pietz is on probation after he was sentenced to nine months in prison in March of 2012 for having weapons while under disability. Records also show he was arrested for domestic violence in Boardman in 2009.