Friday, January 30, 2015
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police confiscated heroin, marijuana, crack cocaine, mushrooms, pills and a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol Wednesday while making four felony drug arrests in separate traffic stops.
About 11:35 p.m., a police- dog handler pulled over a car driven by 41-year-old Richard Parks of Austintown on an Interstate 680 entrance ramp near North Woodland Avenue. Reports said the officer spotted Parks’ car leaving a known drug house on East Chalmers and Heasley avenues and driving erratically, so he pulled the car over.
Reports said Parks told the officer he was coming from his girlfriend’s house on East Chalmers Avenue, but he did not know the address. The officer used his dog to do a sniff outside Parks’ car for drugs, but while he was doing that, another officer said Parks had a large bulge in his socks. When police searched him, they found two individual doses of heroin in his socks, reports said.
Parks was taken to the Mahoning County jail on a charge of possession of heroin.
About 8:50 p.m., a police- dog handler pulled over a car driven by 35-year-old Randall Culler of Austintown for running a red light, and as he pulled over at East Dewey and South avenues, he threw something out of his car, reports said.
Reports said Culler told police he was going home from work, but officers told him he was going the wrong way from his destination. A records check revealed he had a warrant from Austintown and he had a crack pipe and crack cocaine on him. When his car was searched, police found a marijuana cigar, a marijuana pipe, 51 pills of various types and two suboxone strips.
Culler was taken to the jail on four counts of possession of dangerous drugs, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
About 7:15 p.m., another police-dog handler pulled over a car at U.S. 422 and U.S. 62 for speeding and driving with only one working headlight. The driver of the car, 22-year-old Jawon Williams, told the officer his girlfriend was in labor, reports said.
The officer had his dog sniff the outside of the car, and the dog detected drugs by the driver’s-side window, reports said. When police searched the car, they found a bag of marijuana and a bag of crack cocaine by the door. Williams was arrested on charges of possession of crack cocaine and possession of marijuana and taken to the jail.
Just before 7 p.m., officers from the Vice Squad on patrol pulled over a car driven by Timothy Thompson, 27, no address listed, for an improper turn at East Lucius Avenue and Southern Boulevard.
Reports said Thompson could not provide a driver’s license or registration, and he also has a warrant from the Portage County Sheriff’s Office, reports said. Reports said police searched the car, and in a gym bag in the back they found a scale with suspected drug residue on it and a pill bottle that had nine mushrooms inside. Inside a hat that was in the bag, police found an unloaded .25-caliber handgun.
Thompson was arrested on charges of possession of dangerous drugs, possession of drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia and the warrant.
All four are expected to be arraigned in municipal court today.