METRO DIGEST || Animal Charity vet clinic closing

Vet clinic closing

YOUNGSTOWN

Animal Charity of Ohio, 4140 Market St., announced Tuesday via a Facebook post that it is closing the Jean Kelty Veterinary Clinic Oct. 6. The in-house clinic serves both animals from the shelter and from the public.

Current vet Jennifer Kotouch is leaving the clinic, but Animal Charity said veterinary services will resume once the position is filled.

3 injured in crash

LIBERTY

Three people were injured in a two-vehicle head-on crash in the 800 block of Tibbetts-Wick Road near Shannon Road in the township shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday. According to the Trumbull County 911 Center, three people were transported to a hospital for treatment, but it is not known the seriousness of their injuries. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating the crash.

Additional charge

AUSTINTOWN

A township man arrested on a warrant Wednesday was given an additional charge of possession after a bag containing heroin and fentanyl was found in a police vehicle, a report said.

Darren Simpson, 29, of North Beverly Avenue, is charged with possession of drugs, drug abuse (heroin and fentanyl) and was arrested on the warrant out of Youngstown Wednesday afternoon.

Police said they searched Simpson during a traffic stop, but while transporting Simpson, the officer noted that he was reaching toward the floorboard in the back seat of the police cruiser. Simpson was removed from the cruiser, and a bag of heroin was visible on the floorboard, the report said.

Simpson told police the bag wasn’t his, and that they’d checked him already, the report said. Before the arresting officer’s shift, they said they checked the floorboards of their police vehicle as well, the report said.

4 arrested in 2 raids

YOUNGSTOWN

Four people were arrested in two vice raids carried out simultaneously at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Daniel Russell, 48, and Michael Moore, 28, were arrested during a raid on Saranac Avenue where police found heroin, cocaine, two digital scales and a box of .45-caliber ammunition.

Moore is charged with possession of heroin, cocaine and drug paraphernalia. Russell is charged with possession of heroin.

Khaliah Green, 40, and an unidentified individual were arrested in a raid on Ferndale Avenue where police found fentanyl, crack cocaine, various pills and a digital scale. Police also confiscated $230 in cash and two flat-screen televisions.

Green was arrested on a warrant for drug paraphernalia.

6 months for sex crime

YOUNGSTOWN

A Lowellville man accused of inappropriately touching a family member will serve six months in jail.

Kenneth Mercer, 44, of Lowellville, was indicted on six counts of gross sexual imposition but pleaded guilty to two counts of child endangering earlier this year.

The jail sentence is a condition of three years’ probation ordered by Judge Lou A. D’Apolito Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Mercer also must avoid contact with the victim, who no longer resides in Ohio.

The alleged sexual contact took place between 2010 and 2014 when the victim was 10 to 14 years old. She was fully clothed at the time, prosecutors said.

Charged with huffing

BOARDMAN

A Youngstown man faces a felony charge of abusing harmful intoxicants after township police responded to a report Wednesday that a man was “huffing” inhalants behind the Target store on Boardman-Poland Road. Police found Franklin Broadhurst, 26, lying on the ground in a wooded area behind the store. “We also observed several cans of computer keyboard duster lying around Broadhurst, most of which were empty,” police said. Broadhurst admitted to huffing the chemicals, they said.

According to a police report, the charge was elevated to a felony due to Broadhurst’s previously being convicted of the same charge.

Crews control roof fire

YOUNGSTOWN

Fire crews were able to get a fire on the roof of the former Ward Bakery building on Mahoning Avenue under control Thursday before it spread to the building. Battalion chief Jim Drummond said wooden pallets on the roof caught fire at about 10 a.m., possibly because of debris from a nearby trash can.

“It did get into the roofing, about a 6-foot stretch, but luckily we were able to get to it before it reached the building,” he said.