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Warren police kept busy answering drug-overdose calls
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Police officers early this week were kept busy, with five of eight arrests involving drug activity. Two of the others were for warrants, and another was a juvenile involved in a burglary.
At 12:15 a.m. Monday, Gentry L. Crenshaw, 55, of Seventh Street Southwest, was found unresponsive in the hallway of an apartment building at 970 Tod Ave. NW.
When police arrived, he was drenched in water because the caller had put ice cubes and water on him to revive him. Crenshaw was standing and answering questions. Police found a cigarette pack with him containing three drug syringes and a shoelace tied to it, plus three small bags of possible crack cocaine and a grayish substance.
No charges were filed pending lab results. He was taken to jail on a warrant.
At 10:15 a.m. Monday, police were called to Douglas Street Northwest for a single-car car accident and found that the driver, Amanda Torreance, 36, of Adelaide and Bond avenues, had an arrest warrant.
The vehicle Torreance was driving had been reported traveling erratically 15 minutes earlier on West Market Street near Martin Luther King Boulevard, but officers could not locate it.
When police arrested Torreance, she appeared to be impaired. She said she was using one drug with a prescription but another one without a prescription.
A blood test was performed, and police charged her with operating a motor vehicle impaired and reckless operation.
At 5:30 p.m. Monday, while on patrol, an officer saw a Jeep in the driveway at 300 Scott St. NE and spoke with a male driver, who said he was waiting for a female.
The officer saw Jessica Dean, 37, of Pierce Road, Garrettsville, walking nearby and getting into the Jeep. She was arrested on a warrant, but police also found suspected crack cocaine on the floor of the Jeep and a drug syringe, metal spoon, and glass crack pipe, plus possible heroin in Dean’s bag. She was taken to jail on the warrant and drug-paraphernalia charges. Drug charges are pending lab results.
At 7:28 p.m. Monday, officers were called to the Sunrise Inn on East Market Street for a couple that didn’t pay their $9.80 dinner bill.
They located Jesse Ellsworth, 23, of Bayberry Drive, Howland, nearby and found he had a parole-violation warrant. He admitted to not paying the bill, and police found a crack pipe in his pants pocket and the opiate-addiction drug Suboxone in another pocket.
He was charged with petty theft and possession of drug paraphernalia.
At 9:26 p.m. Monday, officers were dispatched to Dunkin Donuts on Youngstown Road for a male who had overdosed in the bathroom and found Brandon M. Flanagan, 24, of Washington Avenue in Niles, unresponsive on the floor with a drug syringe next to him.
After multiple doses of the opiate reversal drug naloxone was administered, he became conscious. Police found more drug syringes in his book bag and a small bag of suspected heroin.
Flanigan was charged with possession of drug-abuse instruments, and other charges are pending lab results. He was taken to the hospital for evaluation.
Lt. Jeff Cole, police department day-shift commander, said he could tell from the discussion at roll call Tuesday the day-shift officers were busy Monday.
Cole said he hasn’t noticed a trend in drug activity in Warren in the several months he’s been shift commander.
“It’s not a weekend thing or end of the week thing. It can happen any day,” he said. “A high percentage of our calls are drug related, whether it’s overdose, OVI [operating a vehicle impaired]. It doesn’t have a certain demographic or time of day,” he said.