Man found with gun says he has been shot nine times

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Police 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. Wednesday 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 earlier.

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.

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 three 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.

Vindicator online archives show that Haynes was wounded in a shooting as far back as May 2001 on Griffith Street.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court records show he has a minimal criminal record dating back to 1993. His last felony charge was in 2007.