Youngstown detective wakes woman in burning home

By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Detective Sgt. Ed Kenney of the police department Tuesday decided to go west rather than east, and the decision led to him getting a woman out of a burning home.

Kenney, a patrol supervisor for the South Side, was looking for suspects in a theft from the Market Street Dollar General about 7 p.m. That Dollar General is on the east side of Market Street.

Kenney said typically when a crime is committed on the east side of Market Street, the culprits flee east. But Tuesday, witnesses told police the suspects ran across Market Street and ran west.

So Kenney was driving down Balsam Court looking for them when he spotted smoke and flames coming from the front of a 1749 Gertrude Place home.

Kenney stopped, called the fire department, then knocked on the front door. He got no answer and the more he knocked the greater the smoke became, which was especially strong because of the siding on the porch that was melting from the flames.

“It was that real, toxic, acrid smell,” Kenney said.

Kenney went around the back and was going to kick the back door in when officer John O’Neill arrived and told him a woman ran out the front door. The woman said there was no one else in the home, Kenney said.

The woman declined to talk to reporters Wednesday.

Don Denson lives across the street and got home from work about 15 minutes before the fire broke out. He said Kenney was pounding on the front door, and the flames and smoke got more intense as Kenney was banging on the front door.

Denson praised Kenney’s actions and also the fire department for a quick response.

“The police department did a really good job, and the response time was wonderful,” Denson said.

Fire reports said the blaze started on the front porch, and fire investigator Capt. Kurt Wright said samples from the porch were sent to a lab to see if a cause could be determined. So far the cause is listed as unknown.

Kenney said it was all training and instinct that took over once he spotted the flames.

“Pretty much you just do it. Your training kicks in,” Kenney said.”

This is the first time Kenney has ever been in such a situation, he said, but if it was not for the theft he was called to, he would not have been in the area.

“For some reason, that happened and it put me there,” Kenney said.