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Cops: Drugs found in Youngstown apartment along with baby
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Members of the city’s Community Police Unit found drugs in a Tyrell Avenue apartment Thursday afternoon where a 1-year-old child also was living.
Police found the drugs after accompanying inspectors who requested their presence because of drug activity.
Arraigned in municipal court Friday on charges of possession of dangerous drugs, possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana and possession of drug-abuse instruments was Brianna Keith, 21, of Tyrell Avenue. Her bond was set at $9,000 by Judge Robert Milich.
Reports said officers in the CPU were asked by the management of the apartment complex on Tyrell Avenue to accompany inspectors because of drug activity at the complex, including the apartment where Keith was staying.
Reports said CPU members George Wallace and Shawna Cie-Ott knocked on the door of Keith’s apartment. They told her they had received complaints of drug activity from her apartment and asked if they could come inside and search it.
Keith gave her permission for officers to search the apartment and also signed a form allowing the search, reports said.
Reports said Keith told police there was nothing illegal in the apartment and called a family member to come for the baby. She also called her boyfriend who was furious she let police inside, reports said, but an officer told him Keith allowed them in and gave them permission to search the apartment.
Inside a shopping bag officers found a holster and several rounds of 9 mm ammunition, reports said. Other members of the unit were called, and police found two small bags of suspected marijuana, a bag of suspected heroin, a pipe, two scales and 34 pills.
Reports said Keith tried to tell another officer she thought Cie-Ott and Wallace were not police and were part of the staff handling the inspection, but both officers were carrying sidearms and wearing clothing that clearly identified them as police.
Police Chief Robin Lees said the CPU and other units of the police department plan to concentrate more efforts on the complex in an effort to help stem drug use and sales there. Lees said that management of the complex is also a partner in that effort and that the unit was created to form those kinds of partnerships.