Arraigned in beating

Arraigned in beating

YOUNGSTOWN

An Orange Avenue man is in the Mahoning County jail on $25,000 bond after he was arraigned in municipal court Monday involving a beating police said happened last week.

Reports said Patrick Braun, 42, beat a 43-year-old man March 1 at a home in the 100 block of North Osborn Avenue on the West Side. The victim made a report at the police station the next day, telling officers he tried to stop an argument between Braun and his ex-girlfriend when Braun punched him in the face four or five times. Reports said the victim had a broken nose and both of his eyes were severely bruised.

Found with loaded gun

YOUNGSTOWN

Police found a man with a loaded 9mm handgun while answering a disturbance call at a Market Street store about 8:05 a.m. Sunday.

Officers were called to the store because the owner said a former employee, Alexander Spencer, 20, threatened him with a gun then drove away.

Police found a car Spencer was driving in a nearby parking lot. Reports said police found Spencer with a gun and arrested him, charging him with carrying a concealed weapon, driving under suspension and aggravated menacing, and took him to the Mahoning County jail.

Coroner: Victim was shot in head and neck

HUBBARD

The Trumbull County Coroner’s office ruled that a Hubbard man, whose body was found early Saturday, died from a single gunshot wound to the head and neck, according to Vindicator broadcast partner 21-WFMJ TV.

The death of Cody Pitts, 26, was ruled a homicide, according to the Hubbard Police Department. The body was found before 3:30 a.m. Saturday on Orchard Avenue near the Downtown Coffee Cafe on North Main Street. A police investigation continues.

Man freed on bond

WARREN

Dale R. McDaniel, 58, of King Graves Road in Howland is free on $10,000 bond after being arraigned Monday in Warren Municipal Court on charges of carrying concealed weapons and receiving stolen property.

Howland police were called to a home on King Graves at 3:08 p.m. Sunday by McDaniel’s estranged wife, who said McDaniel had just kicked down the door and removed shotguns from the house. Police found no evidence that the door had been forced open.

A Howland officer spotted McDaniel’s truck headed west on King Graves a short time later and made a traffic stop on Niles-Cortland Road.

Police recovered a shotgun, three handguns and ammunition inside the truck. One of the handguns was reported stolen from Pittsburgh. Not-guilty pleas were entered for McDaniel on the two felony charges.

Drug, tampering charges

YOUNGSTOWN

An Austintown man spent the weekend in the Mahoning County jail after police say he tried to chew a suboxone strip during a traffic stop after running a stop sign on the West Side about 4:30 p.m. Friday.

Reports said two officers pulled over a car driven by Gage Sobon, 29, and as they walked up to his door, they saw his hands moving toward his mouth.

Reports said Sobon was ordered to spit out whatever was in his mouth and he did so, reports said. He was arrested on charges of possession of drugs and tampering with evidence.

Woman’s car shot up

WARREN

Police observed 12 fresh bullet holes on the passenger side of a woman’s car early Sunday she said came from someone shooting at her from a parking lot on West Market Street.

The 26-year-old city woman said she was traveling toward downtown when she saw someone firing at her from a car in the 2300 block. She said she heard six shots, but police found 12, plus several more that were “rusted over” that she said had occurred in the past.

Brass-knuckle assault

WARREN

A 21-year-old Warren woman reported another woman assaulted her with brass knuckles in the parking lot of Crest Lanes, 3390 Youngstown Road, at 5 p.m. Saturday after she left a baby shower at the bowling alley.

The woman said she was sitting in her car after the shower and a female she knows started assaulting her. The woman using the brass knuckles and another woman left the area in a black vehicle, she said.

The victim had several “raised knots” on her head, and police found a set of brass knuckles on the ground near the woman’s car, police said.

Animal abandonment

BOARDMAN

Township police are investigating a case of animal abandonment after a woman left a dog with a veterinarian after the veterinarian would not euthanize it.

A veterinarian at PetSmart, 1101 Doral Drive, told police a woman brought her dog in Friday and asked that the vet euthanize it because “the dog was acting out and tearing her house apart,” according to a police report.

When the vet refused because the dog was healthy, the woman stormed out of the office and left the dog behind, telling the vet to take care of it. The dog found a new home, however, when a witness offered to take in the dog.

2 robbed at gunpoint

YOUNGSTOWN

Two people reported they were robbed at gunpoint in different parts of town Friday.

A 20-year-old city man said one of two men he met behind an alley on McGuffey Road on the East Side about 7:50 p.m. put a gun in his face, made him strip and took his wallet, jewelry and phone.

About 11 p.m. on the South Side, a 42-year-old Austintown woman said she was in a South Avenue parking lot when two men came up to her car, pointed a gun at her and demanded money.

Reports said the men got $130, then ran away toward East Lucius Avenue.

Siding, tools found in van

YOUNGSTOWN

Police arrested two men about 2:30 p.m. Saturday after they found siding from a vacant house and tools used to break into homes inside a van they were driving.

Reports said Rodney Phillips, 46, and Stephen Phillips, 35, were each charged with unauthorized removal and possession of criminal tools, and Stephen Phillips faces an additional count of breaking and entering.

Police stopped a van Stephen Phillips was driving in the 100 block of East Avondale Avenue after receiving a call about men stripping an abandoned house, reports said.

Police checked that home and found the doors forced open and part of the siding gone. Reports said Stephen Phillips also admitted to taking siding off two houses on the block.

Inside the van, police found a sledgehammer, pry bar and crow bar. Both men were taken to the Mahoning County jail.