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Two men arrested in the theft of catalytic converters
By ROBERT CONNELLY
BOARDMAN
Two men were arrested over the weekend, accused of stealing catalytic converters.
Derek Robert Watson, 29, of Vestal Road in Youngstown, and 34-year-old Jonathan Eugene Lockridge, of North Benton, were arrested early Saturday in the 7600 block of Hitchcock Road on charges of felony receiving stolen property and possession of criminal tools and misdemeanor obstructing official business. Watson also faces a minor misdemeanor traffic charge for leaving his keys in the ignition of his truck.
Bond was set at $6,000, or the two could wait until their first court appearance at 8:30 a.m. today in Mahoning County Area Court in Boardman.
Township police were called to Spartan Drive at 3:30 a.m. Saturday for a suspicious truck with a loud exhaust. Once there, police found a blue Dodge Ram parked on the street in the 500 block of Squirrel Hill Drive with the passenger window rolled down, the keys in the ignition and a warm hood, a township police report detailed.
Officers could see in the bed of the truck a chain pipe cutter, and inside the truck were several catalytic converters with “fresh, clean cuts on the ends,” the report said. Officers had been briefed at the midnight shift change about recent catalytic converter thefts with a type of chain saw/pipe cutter.
Police then saw two people walking on Hitchcock Road across Squirrel Hill Drive and lost sight of them because the two ran into a wooded area.
Boardman called Beaver Township to use the department’s police dog, Hero, who then tracked the men through several yards and found them in a wooded area behind a home at 7600 Squirrel Hill Drive. Watson told police while he was being booked into the Mahoning County jail that they watched police check out his truck from the bushes they were found behind.
The arrest report of the two included reports of vehicles with their catalytic converters stolen. An owner of a vehicle parked in front of a home in the 7900 block of Last Tree Drive reported a converter stolen between 11 p.m. Friday and 3:25 a.m. Saturday. That owner estimated the cost to replace the converter at $2,200. A man also had his converter stolen from his vehicle at his home in the 7900 block of Glenwood Avenue sometime between 11 p.m. Friday and 9:52 a.m. Saturday. The cost of that replacement was $4,000.
A third report also was linked to the duo. That converter was stolen from a vehicle in the 4100 block of Stratford Road sometime between 1 a.m. Thursday and 10:15 a.m. Friday. The converter was cut out using a chain cutter, and a Midas shop in Boardman estimated the total loss, including labor, at $1,050.