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Man and woman escape house fire shortly after threat
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Police took a 55-year-old city man into custody Wednesday on a warrant and a misdemeanor falsification charge after a woman reported that he was threatening her about an hour before a “suspicious” fire at her Charles Avenue Southeast home.
The woman and a second man escaped uninjured from the 10:58 p.m. fire that started on the home’s porch, but the home was damaged badly enough that Fire Chief Ken Nussle is recommending it be demolished. It had $25,000 in damage to the home and $15,000 to the contents.
Nussle called the origin of the fire “suspicious.” He said it is not known yet whether an accelerant was used to start the fire. Materials from the porch will be analyzed to attempt to determine that, he said.
Police were looking for the man after the fire because of the possibility he had been involved and the allegation regarding the threat.
They found him standing beside a car that had broken down on Niles Road Southeast about 12:45 a.m. Another man was standing there also, putting gasoline into the man’s car.
Police said the falsification charge resulted from the man identifying himself as someone else, then admitting his real name.
The man appeared Wednesday in Warren Municipal Court, where he was charged with two offenses — falsification and a warrant relating to failure to pay fines and costs in a previous municipal court case.
He pleaded not guilty to the falsification and was released Wednesday afternoon from the Trumbull County Jail on a personal recognizance bond, meaning he didn’t have to pay anything.
Police said they had planned to charge him with violating a protection order, but court officials said that was not done because the man had not yet been served with the protection order.
Magistrate Patrick McCarthy of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court approved the protection order Aug. 15. It ordered him to stay away from the woman through Nov. 13.
The woman first called police at 9:53 p.m., saying the man had just tried to run her over with his car and threatened her.
He yelled, “You’re dead,” before driving his car at her, she said. “She lunged from the path of the vehicle,” a police report says. The man then left the area.
Officers asked her if she wanted to go to the Warren domestic-violence shelter Someplace Safe, but she declined, saying she was going to go stay with a friend.
The fire was about an hour later.