Manhunt target Luis Cruz Ramos faces 26-136 years

By JOE GORMAN

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Paul Gains indictment of Luis Cruz Ramos

Video

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains talks about the indictment of Luis Cruz Ramos.

A Mahoning County grand jury indicted the man who authorities said shot at city police officers, rammed Campbell police cruisers and eluded a manhunt at a Boardman cemetery last week on 13 charges.

Luis Cruz Ramos, 30, was indicted Thursday on charges of failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer, three counts of felonious assault, five additional counts of felonious assault with a firearms specification attached to each count, resisting arrest with a firearms specification and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

All the felonious-assault counts are felonious assault on a police officer. He is accused of firing at four officers from Youngstown, two from Campbell and one from Boardman during the chase. None of the officers were hit.

Some of the shots were fired at officers while they were in their cruisers and additional shots were fired at Youngstown officers who were trying to deploy stop sticks on the freeway.

He faces a minimum of 26 years in prison and a maximum sentence of 136 years.

Ramos went from Campbell to Boardman back to Campbell and then got on the freeway before ditching his van on Interstate 680 south in Boardman and bailing out near Lake Park Cemetery, police said. Officers from Boardman and Youngstown deployed stop sticks during the chase, which punctured three of Ramos’ tires, before he abandoned his van.

A search of the cemetery and the area around it found no sign of Ramos, who was spotted April 1 walking on the South Side and shot by members of the U.S. Marshals Northeast Ohio Fugitive Task Force. The officers chased Ramos on foot and shot Ramos after he pulled a gun on them on Maywood Drive, authorities said.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating the circumstances involving the shooting because a trooper who is a member of the task force fired the shot that wounded Ramos.

County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains said the circumstances surrounding Ramos’ apprehension on Maywood Drive may be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office because the trooper who shot Ramos was working for the U.S. Marshals at the time.

Gains said preliminary results of that investigation show the shooting of Ramos was justified because he pulled a gun and because of his conduct of ramming police cruisers and shooting at police officers before he was caught.

Gains also said authorities do not yet have any evidence that someone helped Ramos elude authorities or hide from them before he was caught.

“At this point, we don’t know if he was assisted,” Gains said.

Ramos was released Monday from St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital and booked into the county jail, where he was arraigned in municipal court via video. His bond was set at $1 million.

Campbell police began looking for Ramos after his ex-girlfriend called them from Philadelphia and told them Ramos was wanted on the warrant from Puerto Rico. Reports said she also told Campbell police she left Ramos after he kept her against her will for more than a month in a Murray Avenue home.

Gains said the case Ramos is wanted for in Puerto Rico is a probation violation for a gross sexual imposition charge.

Assistant Prosecutor Martin Desmond, who is prosecuting the case, said Ramos can go back to Puerto Rico when he is done serving his sentence here.

“Puerto Rico and the federal government can have him when we’re done with him,” Desmond said.