43
YPD seizes 3 guns over weekend
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police seized three semiautomatic handguns over the weekend and took three people into custody in two separate traffic stops.
Two of the guns were found in a car pulled over about 1 a.m. Sunday at Oak Street and Medina Avenue on the East Side by officer Marcin Stachowicz after he spotted the car fail to yield on the Himrod Avenue Expressway. Reports said the car took a long time to pull over.
According to a police report, there were four people in the car, and Stachowicz called for backup. When the other officers arrived, they opened the passenger door where Darrell Phifer Jr., 31, of Plazaview Court was sitting and they could smell a strong odor of marijuana.
Because of the odor, the other three people inside were asked to get out of the car so it could be searched. When Phifer got out of the car, police found a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun where the driver, Tijuan Muldrow, 21, of Oak Street, was sitting as well as a bag of suspected heroin and a bottle with 25 painkillers inside.
Where Phifer was sitting, police found a .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun that was reported stolen from Mercer, Pa.
Officers arrested Phifer on charges of improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle and receiving stolen property. Magistrate Anthony Sertick set his bond at $35,000 at Phifer’s arraignment in municipal court Monday. He is in the Mahoning County jail.
Reports said Muldrow’s gun was loaded with a 15-round magazine, and next to the gun was another magazine loaded with 17 rounds. He was arraigned on charges of improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle, possession of heroin and possession of drugs. His bond was set at $27,500. He is in the jail.
Muldrow was a suspect in a June 2012 double homicide and was to go to trial in August 2015, but the case was dismissed because a key witness could not be found by prosecutors, according to court records.
About 2:20 p.m. Saturday, police arrested Calvin Moore Jr., 44, of Katherine Avenue, on a weapons charge after a car he was driving was pulled over at Wick and Rayen avenues on the North Side. An officer spotted him and knew Moore had a suspended license, according to a police report.
Moore told the officer he knew his license was suspended and he also told the officer he had a gun on his hip. The officer searched Moore and police found a loaded 9 mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic handgun loaded with a 15-round magazine on his hip.
According to Vindicator files, Moore was shot in November 2013 by a woman whose home he tried to break into on the South Side. He also was one of four men charged in a 2002 murder on the East Side. Those charges were dismissed.
City Prosecutor Dana Lantz told Sertick that Moore served five to 15 years on a felonious-assault conviction in 1990.
Sertick set Moore’s bond set at $12,500. He is in the jail.