Two arrested for child endangering in separate incidents

January 24, 2018 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Police charged two women Monday with child endangering after reports said they placed their children in dangerous situations.

Officers were called about 3:15 p.m. to a 122 W. Federal St. parking lot for a report of a large fight and when they arrived, a crowd of more than 20 people scattered.

Reports said a person was there holding a 2-year-old child. He said one of the people who ran off left the child there when police arrived, and he did not know who the child was or the whereabouts of a parent.

As police were trying to find out, reports said Azeray DeJay Jacqueline Hayes, 19, of Ohio Avenue came back to the parking lot and was placed into custody.

Officers also had another child of Hayes, who was a twin, in one of their cruisers as well before she returned, reports said. An officer spotted the child being held by one of the people running away from the fight in the parking lot and took the child back to the lot.

Reports said Hayes and Katina Ware of Youngstown had threatened to beat up a juvenile, and they ran into the juvenile and her sister at the Downtown Circle. Store employees stopped a fight there, but the juvenile and another girl were confronted by Hayes and Ware in the parking lot, reports said.

Ware and Hayes are both charged with assault, and Hayes also was charged with child endangering. They were both booked into the Mahoning County jail.

The twins were placed with relatives. Mahoning County Children Services also was called.

Also Monday, officers were called about 4:30 p.m. to Burbank and Wesley avenues on the West Side for a car that had run into a utility pole and found a child inside. The child’s mother, Lachelle Cantrell, 34, was out of the car and talking to a driver in another car. She smelled of alcohol and told police to “call my mom,” reports said.

Paramedics took the child to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital to be examined. Reports did not say how old the child was or the child’s gender.

Reports said officers tried to give Cantrell a field-sobriety test by examining her eyes, but she refused to look at officers.

She was taken to the police station for a blood-alcohol test, where she registered a 0.284, reports said. In Ohio, a person is considered drunk if he or she has a BAC of 0.08 or higher.

Officers tried to take Cantrell to the Mahoning County jail, but the jail refused to take her because of her intoxication. She was taken instead to St. Elizabeth and charged with operating a vehicle intoxicated and child endangering.

As of late Tuesday afternoon, she had still not been booked into the jail.