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Man pleads, is sentenced to five years in July chase
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum said Tuesday he agreed to uphold a recommended five-year prison sentence for a man who pleaded guilty to ramming a police cruiser and kicking a paramedic, because the defendant has no prior violent felony record and that five years is a long time to be behind bars.
“This is a significant punishment,” Judge Krichbaum said during the sentencing for 36-year-old Brandon Liggens in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. “It could be more, it could be less, but this is probably the right number.”
Liggens, of Youngstown, pleaded guilty just before sentencing to two counts of felonious assault, failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer, being a felon in possession of a firearm, assault and two counts of endangering children stemming from a July 3 chase that started in Youngstown.
The chase wound its way through Campbell and culminated at Albert and Victor streets when his vehicle was stopped after it was rammed by a Campbell police cruiser. And, that came after Liggens rammed a cruiser driven by Youngstown police Detective Sgt. Ed Kenney on McCartney Road as Kenney was trying to block traffic to keep other vehicles away from the chase.
The chase began when officer Brandon Caraway, who was on patrol on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, saw a man running on foot off the Madison Avenue Expressway in front of his cruiser. Shortly after, the occupants of a vehicle flagged down Caraway and told them someone in a white car was shooting at another car on the expressway.
Caraway and other officers looked for the white car and the runner, who was identified as Liggens, and found him on Wirt Street, next to a white car, leaning over a guardrail with a man and a woman nearby. When Caraway and other officers told the man to get on the ground, the man and woman got on the ground, but Liggens ran to the car and drove away. As officers chased the car, they could see two people in the backseat who were waving to the officers as if they wanted out of the car. Those were the children who were later found.
The car went through several North Side streets to the East Side, then Wilson Avenue into Campbell, where Campbell police joined the chase with Youngstown officers following. At one point, one of the tires on the car Liggens was driving exploded in a shower of sparks, but he refused to stop.
When the car was pulled over, officers had to break a window to unlock the door. Liggens had to be pulled out and he would not allow officers to handcuff him, so he was stunned with an electronic weapon. Liggens was placed in an ambulance and kicked a paramedic in the face while inside it.
After the chase, police went back to where the chase started with a Campbell police dog and his handler and found a .44 Magnum revolver and a 7.62 mm semiautomatic rifle.
Liggens said he was sorry for what he had done. He did not say why he ran from police.
“I apologize for my actions,” Liggens said.