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Man stabbed over phone; woman’s foot run over by cousin
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
At least three people were taken into custody over the weekend after a series of fights across the city.
One person who is still at large, however, is someone police said ran over a 19-year-old woman’s foot about 9 p.m. Sunday in the first block of East Lucius Avenue after an argument over a missing pack of cigarettes.
Reports said the victim told police she was at another home and began fighting with family members after a pack of cigarettes there came up missing and the victim was accused of taking them. The woman left that home and went to East Lucius Avenue to get away from the fighting, reports said.
A family member, however, followed the victim there and began punching her and pulling her hair before getting in a car and running over the victim’s foot, then leaving just seconds before officers arrived, reports said.
The woman told police she would seek treatment for the foot on her own.
About 5 p.m., Ashley Sellars, 21, of Crandall Avenue, was arrested on a charge of felonious assault after reports said her boyfriend told police while being treated for a stab wound at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital that Sellars had stabbed him during an argument over a cellphone.
Reports said police went to Sellars’ Crandall Avenue home and took her into custody. Police found a knife that was supposed to have been used in the attack, as well as blood on the floor and the walls of the kitchen. Reports said Sellars’ mother asked the officers what would happen if she said she stabbed the man instead of Sellars, because Sellars has three young children.
At her arraignment Monday, assistant city Prosecutor Jeffrey Moliterno said Sellars has a pending felonious-assault case from an incident in January, where she was indicted by a grand jury after police said she drove her mother to a fight at a Gypsy Lane store and then ran someone down in a vehicle as she and her mother were trying to leave. Magistrate Anthony Sertick set her bond at $50,000.
About 3:10 a.m. Sunday, two men were taken into custody after a fight downtown on West Federal Street. Reports said there were several men and women fighting in the 100 block of West Federal Street, and officers began trying to break it up and get people to leave.
Reports said an officer was trying to place a man in handcuffs when Anthony Naze, 21, of Rush Boulevard, approached the officer and was told to leave. Naze swatted an officer’s hand away and then yelled profanity at the officer, reports said.
When Naze was told he was under arrest, he tried to walk away before he was taken to the ground, his shirt and chain ripping in the process. He was booked into the Mahoning County jail on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Also taken into custody was Thomas Duffy, 22, of Seacrest Avenue in Girard. Reports said during the fight, an officer saw Duffy put a man in a chokehold, and when a woman tried to get Duffy to break the hold, he hit her in the face. The officer tried to take Duffy into custody but they both fell to the ground and Duffy was fighting the officer, reports said.
Reports said the officer managed to get Duffy’s hands cuffed when they got up, and Duffy was placed in a cruiser. Officers had to tell people to leave because of the large crowd.
Reports said the officer who arrested Duffy lost his electronic stun weapon during the scuffle, and it could not be found after a search.
Duffy was taken to the jail on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Police also were called Saturday afternoon to a home on Dupont Street where a man told them he was punched in the face by another man after an argument that began more than a week ago about loud music being played.
No one was arrested in that case.