METRO DIGEST || Cops find kids at roadside with lighter fluid

Kids alone at roadside

WARREN

Police contacted Trumbull County Children Services after two police officers observed children age 7 months, 2, 4 and 6 standing beside the road alone at 1:05 p.m. Thursday, the youngest one sucking on a closed bottle of charcoal-lighter fluid.

The officers took the bottle from the child and asked them where they lived. About then, their mother came out of a home on South Feederle Drive Southeast, but she denied that the children were hers until a neighbor told police she was their mother.

The woman, 29, said she had told the children to stay in the backyard while she made lunch and that the lighter fluid belonged to a neighbor.

Grandma to the rescue

WARREN

A 24-year-old woman was attacked at her home by a woman with a knife while other women videotaped it Thursday.

The woman said she got a warning from a social-media website on her phone that she was about to be attacked by several women she knows. As she tried to leave her home on Sweetbrier Street Southwest at 5 p.m., the women drove up, she said.

The women got out of a sport utility vehicle, with one of them putting a long knife to the victim’s throat. The victim’s 86-year-old grandmother intervened, and she and the woman with the knife fell to the ground. The other females filmed the incident.

Other people came out of the house and helped break up the altercation, and the suspects left, police said. The victim suffered a minor injury but did not seek medical attention.

Emergency in Lisbon

LISBON

Gov. John Kasich has declared a state of emergency because of damage from Wednesday’s storms.

According to 21 WFMJ-TV, The Vindicator’s broadcast partner, the declaration will allow crews from the Ohio Department of Transportation to help clear debris and roads in the city.

Downburst winds from strong thunderstorms Wednesday are blamed for destroying or damaging homes and downing trees.

The city and Columbiana also issued their own emergency declarations Friday.

Reports from the county Emergency Management Agency found 20 to 25 homes damaged by the storm.

School aide charged

AUSTINTOWN

A former school aide will be in court later this month, charged with assault and child endangering involving a 15-year-old child with Down syndrome.

Lisa Schriner, 49, of DeHoff Drive, pleaded innocent to the charges in April. Her pretrial is set for June 23 in Mahoning County Area Court.

According to an April 9 police report, witnesses reported the boy, who also is autistic, was “roughed up” when the aide threw him into a brick wall on the side of Fitch High School, then yelled at him.

Man facing 20 years

WARREN

Matthew W. Burroughs, 31, of Royal Mall Drive in Niles pleaded not guilty Friday to one count of aggravated burglary and one count of robbery in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. Judge Andrew Logan set his bond at $50,000.

The charges accuse him of breaking into the house of the mother of his child on Peace Avenue Northwest in March and assaulting her.

When the 29-year-old woman came back into the house from taking out the trash, Burroughs was waiting for her and struck her a couple of times in the face, threw her to the floor and threatened to kill her, she said. He then took items out of her purse, she said. Burroughs could get almost 20 years in prison, if convicted.

Black bear sighted

HUBBARD

A township resident spotted a black bear around 9:30 a.m. Friday on Pothour Wheeler Road at John White Road.

William Baum said the bear crossed the road in front of him while he was driving. It went into some woods behind Timber Point, a large condo development along Pothour Wheeler. He estimated it weighed about 125 pounds. Baum said he has seen a black bear in the area before.

Man faces charges

WARREN

Norman J. MacLachlan, 45, of Jefferson Street Southwest and Ohio Avenue Northwest was charged with aggravated burglary Thursday after residents of a house on Logan Avenue Southeast said McLachlan came to the house with a baseball bat and a gun at 7:15 a.m. and threatened people there with them.

A woman said MacLachlan came to the door with the bat and gun and pointed the gun at her, trying to open the door, but she blocked him from coming in. MacLachlan then walked away, waving the gun and hitting lightpoles with the bat.

MacLachlan said he had come to the house seeking the return of money he was owed. Police found MacLachlan nearby and confiscated a bat from him but didn’t find a gun.

MacLachlan pleaded not guilty Friday morning in Warren Municipal Court and is in Trumbull County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bond.