Boardman police: Man threatened to burn apartment building down

Staff report

BOARDMAN

Township police say a Hillman Way resident assaulted a woman and attempted to light their apartment building on fire Thursday night.

Officers were sent to an apartment in the 4000 block of Hillman about 10 p.m. after a woman called 911 to report that she’d been in an altercation with Damarcus Sadler. She said he had “poured lighter fluid all over the apartment, had a lighter and threatened to burn the building down,” according to a police report.

Police said Sadler, 29, also called 911 and “advised he would be returning to the apartment to ‘handle business,’ light the place on fire, and that he wished for the police to kill him.”

Police found Sadler sitting outside and took him into custody, according to the report.

After entering the apartment, police reported smelling the odor of lighter fluid. Firefighters were called to the scene.

The victim, who is pregnant, told police she and Sadler got into an argument, during which he threatened to burn the place down and kill them both.

She said he got some lighter fluid from a cupboard and poured it in the hallway, kitchen, bedroom and living room, then lit a cigarette, held the lighter and said he was “going to burn the place down and did not care if anyone died.”

The woman and another man were able to take the lighter from him and call 911, according to the report.

Police said the building has eight units, and Sadler’s threat and actions “caused a substantial risk of not only serious physical [harm] but death to all occupants.”

Sadler is charged with two unspecified counts of attempted felony, felony domestic violence, misdemeanor domestic violence and inducing panic. He was treated at a hospital then taken to the Mahoning County jail.

He is scheduled to appear in Mahoning County Area Court here Tuesday.