Cops: Woman drives mom to fight, runs man down with SUV

By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Police said a woman drove her mother to a Gypsy Lane store to fight someone and then got arrested for felonious assault after she ran someone down with her SUV.

Ashley Sellars, 21, of Crandall Avenue, is in the Mahoning County jail on $5,000 bond after she was arraigned Friday in municipal court before Magistrate Anthony Sertick.

Sellars was arrested at her home after police first were called to the Save-A-Lot on Gypsy Lane, where several witnesses said two women came to the store and one went inside to fight an employee.

That woman, who later was identified as Sellars’ mother, was made to leave the store, but a large crowd gathered outside as she got inside an SUV driven by Sellars, reports said.

Reports said Sellars drove toward a large group of people, and her SUV struck a man, who was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital to be treated.

Another witness from the store followed the SUV back to the 300 block of Crandall Avenue and informed police it was there, reports said.

When officers arrived, Sellars told them she had driven her mother to the store because her mother wanted to fight an employee. Her mother went inside and then came back out, reports said. Sellars told police as she tried to drive away she drove toward the crowd because she “did not know anything else to do,” reports said.

Police found a mark on the bumper of the SUV that was consistent with a mark that would be made if a person was hit by a vehicle, reports said.

At her arraignment, assistant city Prosecutor Jeffrey Moliterno said that the man Sellars is accused of running down was trying to stop the argument before he was hit.

Sertick issued a no- contact order for Sellars against the victim, but Sellars said she did not know the man she is accused of hitting.