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Two cops hurt after man throws woman out into freezing cold
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Two city police officers were injured Thursday morning trying to take a man into custody.
Police said the man had kicked a woman out of a North Belle Vista Avenue home in freezing-cold weather and would not let officers in to check on six children inside.
Nicholas Kovacs, 34, was arraigned in municipal court Friday on six counts of child endangering plus counts of domestic violence, obstruction of justice and resisting arrest.
Police were called about 12:20 a.m. Thursday to a home in the 100 block of North Belle Vista by a woman who was sitting in a car wearing nothing but a T-shirt and with no shoes on despite freezing temperatures. The woman told police she got upset at Kovacs when she found him smoking crack cocaine in a bathroom and she took his crack pipe, broke it and threw it away.
Reports said the woman told police Kovacs became enraged, threw her into a bathtub and body-slammed her in a bedroom before throwing her out of the house and locking the door.
When police arrived, the woman told them she was worried about her children. Kovacs came to a window holding a child, opened the window while still holding the child and told police to get off his property. Police told Kovacs to let them in because they had a domestic-violence complaint, but he refused, reports said.
Officers then got permission from a supervisor to break down the door, and officer Jerry Fulmer went to one door and Doug Pesa to another. Fulmer got his foot wedged in the door when he tried to kick it open and Kovacs then pushed against the door, slamming it shut on Fulmer’s foot.
Officer Gregory Tackett found an open window and warned Kovacs to get on the ground or he would be shot with an electronic stun weapon, but Kovacs refused. Tackett fired his stun weapon and Kovacs was struck, releasing his grip on the door, which caused Fulmer to fall. Pesa got in the back door with officer Kenneth Bielik, but Kovacs refused to get on the ground for police, so he was stunned again, reports said.
While police were struggling with Kovacs, a dog came out of another room and bit Pesa on the thigh, reports said, before the dog scampered away into the basement. Kovacs continued to resist efforts to be handcuffed until the officers managed to cuff his hands behind his back.
Reports said Fulmer’s foot was bruised and turning purple, and Pesa had two puncture wounds from the dog bite. They were both taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital to be examined.