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Suspected jewel thieves escape police
By Joe Gorman
and Billy Ludt
BOARDMAN
Police called off a 21/2-hour search Monday afternoon on the West Side of Youngstown after two men suspected of robbing a Boardman jewelry store led officers on a car chase.
They escaped Monday morning after making off with a couple of diamonds from Jared-Galleria of Jewelry store on Market Street.
Township Police Chief Todd Werth said the two men led his officers from the Market Street store to Mahoning and North Dunlap avenues on the West Side of Youngstown, where the car they were driving collided with another car. The two then ran away on foot.
The driver of the other car was taken for medical treatment, city police said.
Police are looking for a black man wearing a hooded sweatshirt with fringe around the hood and a white male who was driving. There is no further description of the driver.
Boardman police dusted the jewelry store for fingerprints about noon Monday. A representative from Jared’s corporate offices declined to comment.
Boardman, Youngstown and Austintown police, along with members of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, Ohio State Highway Patrol and the U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force, began looking for the two men at Meridian and Bears Den roads.
The search was on foot and with a drone supplied by the sheriff’s office. After finding nothing there, they set up an improvised command post at Bears Den and Industrial roads and began fanning out across the West Side, searching an area bounded by McCollum Road and Mahoning Avenue.
After about an hour, they narrowed their search to an area between South Hazelwood and South Dunlap avenues. At one point, the search led to a community garden on South Hazelwood and a cemetery on South Schenley on foot, then by vehicle through several streets. The drone also was deployed again at a church at the end of Matta Avenue, but the men could not be found.
Werth thanked the other agencies and said the search was necessary because of the brazen nature of the crime.