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2 with heroin, 1 with fentanyl, arrested by YPD
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police arrested three people on drug charges in separate incidents Wednesday.
Police arrested Jeffrey Rogers, 38, no address listed, about 3:10 p.m. in the parking lot of an East Midlothian Boulevard fast-food restaurant after he was observed sitting in the parking lot for a long time inside a parked car.
Reports said officer Mark Sember noticed a car Rogers was in was parked far away from the building, and Rogers was inside the car for several minutes without getting out.
Sember walked over to the car to ask Rogers what he was doing and saw Rogers reaching under his seat. Rogers then poured a sports drink down the area he was reaching under, reports said.
Sember had Rogers get out of the car. The officer noticed brown powder all over the floor board and the side of the center console. Rogers was taken into custody on a charge of possession of heroin and tampering with evidence. Rogers later told Sember he was trying to pour the sports drink on the heroin to get rid of it, reports said.
A little while later Sember spotted a car driven by Ray Abercrombie, 35, of Columbiana, parked at the gas pumps at a gas station in the 200 block of South Avenue about 5:40 p.m. The car stayed at the pumps for several minutes, and Abercrombie never got out to pump gas.
When Sember talked to Abercrombie, Abercrombie told him he was waiting until he was done eating some chicken he had before leaving, but his hands were trembling and he appeared nervous, reports said.
Because of a high number of drug arrests in the area, Sember asked for a police dog, and officer Jessica Shields and her dog Hector arrived.
Hector sniffed the air around the car and detected the odor of drugs, reports said, and a rock of suspected crack cocaine was found on the floorboard, reports said. Police also found a needle and a dose of suspected heroin in Abercrombie’s shorts pockets, reports said. He was arrested on charges of possession of heroin, possession of cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Hector and Shields helped police find suspected fentanyl earlier after the police dog was called about 5 p.m. to help out vice squad officers Jimmy Hughes Jr. and Chris Staley at South and Dorothy avenues after they pulled over a car driven by Leonard Bruno, 31, of Canfield for running a stop sign.
Reports said when he was asked if he had anything illegal in the car, Bruno told police there may be some heroin in the car, but if it was there, it was not his.
Hector was called in, sniffed the air around the car, and officers found a bag of suspected fentanyl, reports said. Bruno was arrested on a charge of possession of drugs.
All three men are in the Mahoning County jail and are expected to be arraigned in municipal court today.