Youngstown police unit begins weekly crime searches

By JOE GORMAN

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Community Police Sweep

Video

Youngstown Community Police conducted a sweep of the South Side netting drugs, guns and arrest for outstanding warrants.

Community Police Sweep

Gallery

Youngstown Community Police executed a sweep of the South Side netting drugs, guns and arrests for outstanding warrants.

Police are hoping to send a message with the first of weekly sweeps in the city’s seven wards by the Community Police Unit.

Perhaps it will sink in for the two men caught early Tuesday evening in a makeshift drug den in a garage at a vacant house in the 500 block of East Lucius Avenue, where police found needles, spoons and other items associated with drug use.

“He picked a bad day to come in this garage and shoot heroin,” said Detective Sgt. Pat Kelly, head of the unit, of one of the two men found in the garage.

A Vindicator reporter and photographer spent the evening observing the unit carrying out the sweeps.

The unit, which began operations in June, has an officer assigned exclusively to each of the city’s seven wards. The idea is to have those officers form connections with residents and community groups and stay in those wards every day to work on those problems, thus freeing up patrol cars to take more calls and do more patrolling.

Kelly said that with the backing of Mayor John McNally and Chief Robin Lees, the unit will focus on each of the seven wards with their sweeps. They picked the 6th Ward for the first sweep Tuesday because of a large amount of criminal activity there lately, particularly the areas around East Avondale Avenue and Rush Boulevard. The area is one of the busiest in the patrol division, Kelly said.

“It’s every day,” Kelly said. “That’s why we’re in this area.”

Joining the Community Police Unit on the sweeps will be the vice squad, Violent Crimes Task Force and the Adult Parole Authority.

“I figure if we can flood the area with enough people we can start to clean it up a little bit,” Kelly said.

The two men found in the garage were charged with drug paraphernalia offenses and are expected to be arraigned in municipal court.

Unit members were busy immediately, as Kelly instructed them to take a zero tolerance approach to traffic and other matters.

A woman stopped at an intersection talking to someone on the sidewalk was cited for impeding the flow of traffic. The woman had a gun in her car but she has a valid concealed carry permit, so no action was taken on the weapon.

A few blocks away, at Erie and Lucius avenues, a man weaving in and out of traffic was pulled over and found to have outstanding warrants from Weathersfield police, so he was taken into custody.

Members also checked out suspected drug activity at a vacant house in the 300 block of East Avondale Avenue, but no one was there.

During a traffic stop of a suspicious vehicle, Kelly said he began his career in community policing in the 1990s, and now that he’s a few years away, said he will probably end it there as well. When asked what the difference was between then and now, he summed it up without hesitation in one word: “Respect.”

“We respected them and they respected us,” Kelly said. But that is not true today, he said.

“These young kids just don’t care,” Kelly said. “They could care less.”

Officers also found a gun on a man who was pulled over in the 800 block of Detroit Avenue for a loud music violation. The man had rolled through another traffic stop past several police officers blaring his music at a loud level. When he was pulled over, police found a loaded .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic handgun and also discovered the driver has 15 open suspensions on his license and a warrant from Trumbull County. He was taken into custody.

His sister was allowed to take the SUV he was driving home, because it was registered to her, but she was warned that if she let him drive it again and he was caught, she could be arrested for wrongful entrustment of a motor vehicle.

Every time officers made a stop, there were lots of prying eyes on them. People came out in their yards or drove by slowly.

Kelly said he wanted people to see to get the message that the police would be there.