Man jailed after threatening cops

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Police said an East Side man was arrested on charges of threatening to kill officers after they came to his home Tuesday afternoon as part of a hit-and-run investigation.

Reports said officers were sent about 4:35 p.m. to a home in the 1300 block of Buckeye Court after a hit-and-run accident on the North Side. Reports said officers received information that the car involved in the accident was there.

Reports said police found a car matching the description in the yard of Fred Hardy, 26. The car had damage to its front end and also had paint on it that came from the other car involved in the crash.

Officers George Anderson and John O’Neill Jr. asked Hardy if he had been on the North Side, and Hardy said, “No,” but when police felt the hood of the car, it was warm as if it had just been driven, reports said.

Hardy then became irate as officers asked for a tow truck, reports said. A woman from a nearby apartment tried to calm him, but Hardy yelled at Anderson, then confronted the tow-truck driver, reports said.

A man then came out and attempted to calm Hardy, but he then threatened to kill all police officers at the scene, so he was taken into custody on a charge of aggravated menacing. Reports said when he was handcuffed, he fell to the ground and told police to shoot him in the back of the head.

The officers took him to the Mahoning County jail, where reports said he told Anderson if he didn’t have a badge, he would go to his home and beat him up, and he also threatened to kill corrections officers at the jail, reports said.