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Warren Six riders face felony charges
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Estimates ranged from 40 to 100 dirt-bike riders and four-wheeler riders showing off, ignoring traffic laws, even kicking other motorists and getting chased by police throughout Trumbull County on Sunday afternoon.
Warren police arrested about 12 riders, mostly when they returned to a staging area in parking lot at the Trumbull Career and Technical Center in Champion.
Warren made some of the arrests after following the riders along state Route 46 and U.S. Route 422 in Warren and Mahoning Avenue on their way into Champion, where officers from several departments and the Ohio State Highway Patrol assisted.
The riders had addresses in Cleveland, Akron and Warren, according to a Warren police report and the Trumbull County Jail, where six of the riders were locked up overnight facing a felony charge of failure to comply with the orders of a police officer.
A woman from Toledo cited by Liberty police said the riders were participating in a “bike life” ride. Such rides have been depicted in Internet videos taped by the riders. Such rides have been staged in various locations around the country.
The Cleveland publication Scene reported recently on a group of young men calling themselves the Wheelie Kings of Cleveland who travel in groups of 20 to 40 “whizzing by ... with complete indifference to traffic laws and, seemingly, their own safety.”
“That feeling of being on a bike is just no fear,” one of the riders said. “You’re on top of the world – people riding up alongside you, people got their cameras out, everybody on the street yelling, ‘Throw it up.’ It’s just the power of the stunt.”
Police reports from Liberty Township and Warren indicated that the riders traveled through Youngstown, Brookfield, Mineral Ridge, Niles, Liberty, Howland, Warren and Champion.
A Liberty police report says the department was advised that 80 to 100 riders were in the county, some “stunt riding” on public roads, “kicking other vehicles passing by.” Liberty officers encountered two riders on Tibbetts-Wick Road, and neither was wearing required eye protection.
A female rider, of Toledo, stopped near a police cruiser and was charged with having no motorcycle license, failure to wear eye protection and no license plates. Her four-wheeler was towed and impounded. A male with her, of the Toledo area, was cited for failure to comply with the orders of a police officer, failure to wear eye protection and no license plates. Both were cited into Girard Municipal Court to appear Sept. 8.