Police: Man tells cops he needs gun to protect himself

YOUNGSTOWN — Police late Wednesday took a gun off a man who reports said told officers he needed a gun because he had been shot nine times.

Officers were called about 11:55 p.m. to the 1800 block of Belmont Avenue on the North Side to look for a man who had robbed a store a couple of hours later.

Officers found Darrell Haynes, 50, of Poplar Street.

Reports said Haynes ran when he saw officers and he was tackled in a field. An officer found a loaded .40-caliber magazine for a handgun on his jacket and put him in a cruiser to search and see if he threw a gun.

As officers searched reports said they saw Haynes thrashing around in the back of a cruiser. When police looked in the cruiser, they found a loaded .40-caliber handgun on the floor of the cruiser.

Haynes was arrested on weapons charges. Reports said he told police he bought the gun recently off a man who is a crack-cocaine addict and gave the man threw rocks of crack for the gun.

Haynes told police he needed a gun because he has suffered nine previous gunshot wounds, including two times in the head.