Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Robbed of Hoverboard
WARREN
A 16-year-old boy reported being robbed of a book bag, tennis shoes and a Hoverboard at 6:40 p.m. Sunday at Paige Avenue and Forest Street Northeast.
Officers spoke with the boy’s mother, who said two masked males approached the victim and demanded the Hoverboard and book bag. The boy said he expected to fight the two males, but they pulled out a handgun, so he gave up the items.
Sidewalks in Girard
GIRARD
By the start of the new school year, city council plans to have sidewalks installed along the east side of Shannon Road from Beaver Avenue, which is the entrance of the junior and senior high school, to the northern end of Dravis Avenue at Park Avenue.
Council approved a resolution to advertise for bids for a joint project with the Trumbull County commissioners at a meeting Monday night.
The estimated cost of the work is $112,198, which includes a signalized crosswalk at the intersection of Beaver and Shannon Road.
The sidewalk portion in nearby Liberty Township will be funded by the Girard schools at a cost of $59,490, and the portion of the project within the city will be paid for by the street department fund at a cost of $52,708.
Alta farmers markets
YOUNGSTOWN
Alta Head Start and Early Head Start locations will host farmers markets from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday. Parents and partners will be able to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables using “Alta Bucks” they’ve earned through volunteer work throughout the school year.
Locations include these learning centers: 4570 Lockwood Blvd., Boardman; 1988 McCartney Road, Youngstown; OCCHA, 3660 Shirley Road, Youngstown; Oakhill Renaissance Place, 345 Oak Hill Ave., Youngstown; Rockford Village, 1406 Dogwood Drive, Youngstown; 126 W. Indiana Ave., Sebring; and 122 Westchester Drive, Austintown.
Woman is assaulted
WARREN
A Youngstown woman, 18, was taken to Trumbull Regional Medical Center at 9:50 p.m. Friday after being assaulted and suffering a severe cut in a conflict with several relatives of her boyfriend's.
The woman said she was sitting in the driveway of a home in the 800 block of Oak Street Southwest with her boyfriend when four women who are related to him got out of a car and told the victim she needed to apologize for a remark on Facebook.
One of the women pulled the victim part way out of the car by her hair and punched her repeatedly in the face and slammed her head into the car door, police said. The four women left the scene.
The victim was treated at the hospital for swelling on her skull, black eyes and a chunk of flesh gone from her head.
Man stabbed in fight
WARREN
A city man, 26, suffered a severe cut to the leg made with a 3-inch knife and was treated at Trumbull Regional Medical Center at 12:30 a.m. Saturday.
The victim said he and his friend were fighting in the street at Parkman Road and Front Street Southwest over $200 that one of them owed the other. The victim said he walked to the hospital after the stabbing. Hospital personnel called police, but the victim said he didn't want police involved.
Death ruled a homicide
WARREN
The Trumbull County Coroner’s office says the May 6 death of Antoine T. Johnson, 34, of 187 Idylwild Street Northeast, has been ruled a homicide as a result of multiple gunshot wounds.
Johnson’s body was taken to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office, where an autopsy was conducted. The Trumbull County Coroner’s office received information on the cause and manner of death fairly quickly, a Trumbull Coroner’s office spokesman said. A complete autopsy report will follow later.
A police report says Johnson was found dead on the sidewalk near his home after police were called at 3:06 a.m. because of gunshots in the area.
Bodies needing an autopsy are being sent to Cuyahoga County since the former Trumbull County coroner, Dr. Humprey Germaniuk, died April 20 at the Cleveland Clinic as a result of end-stage liver disease.
Teen charged in assault
WARREN
A girl, 13, was taken to the juvenile justice center on Friday, charged with felonious assault after she threw a full-sized stapler at a principal at the McGuffey K-8 school on Tod Avenue Northwest and hit another girl in the face with scissors.
A Warren police school resource officer went to a classroom at 10:45 a.m. because of a fight. The officer observed the principal and another staff member attending to a student, 13, with a cut on her face who was also limping.
While this was happening, the officer walked to the girl, who was later arrested. The girl was being supervised by two school staff members, but she threw the stapler and hit the principal in the head with the scissors.
The principal dropped to the floor. She and the injured student were helped to the nurse’s office. The principal also received “outside medical assistance,” the police report said.
Record OD deaths in '17
WARREN
The Trumbull County Coroner’s office has confirmed there were a record 135 overdose deaths in 2017.
A month ago, the coroner’s office was predicting that there would be 135 overdose deaths, but they were waiting on confirmation on several overdose rulings. There were 107 overdose deaths in 2016, which was the previous high.
Of the 135, 58 were in Warren.
Sentenced till 2021
WARREN
Orson Wells, 65, who killed Ted Wade, 20, and attempted to kill Mark A. Dukes, 18, in the Ebony Lounge on Martin Luther King Boulevard in 1977 and was convicted of six counts of kidnapping in the 1993 Lucasville prison riot, will remain in prison at least until January 2021.
Wells’ daughter, Teletha Provitt of Columbus, contacted The Vindicator to protest the characterization by Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins of her father’s prison sentence as being “110 years to life.”
JoEllen Smith, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said 110 years to life is correct in that Wells’ sentences for the murder and attempted murder add up to 20 years to life, and Wells received another 90 years in prison for the Lucasville uprising.
But Smith said an Ohio administrative rule caps the minimum part of Wells’ murder conviction at sentence at 20 years. The maximum sentence for the kidnappings was 150 years.
Robbery sentence
WARREN
Patrick W. McCombs, 27, of Peace Avenue Northwest, was sentenced to six years in prison Monday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court for robbing the Sunoco gas station 805 W. Market St., in August.
The robbery occurred at 1:55 a.m. Aug. 19 when McCombs got out of a car and approached an employee near the gas pumps and ordered him inside the store.
The employee refused to go with McCombs, who got back in the car. Another man was driving, and he pulled away.
Police found McCombs near a dryer in the basement of a home on Cherry Avenue Northwest and arrested him.
Teen who died in van could not communicate properly with 911
COLUMBUS
A 16-year-old Ohio boy who got pinned in the back seat of his minivan and died despite voice-dialing 911 was unable to communicate properly with dispatchers because his phone was in his pocket, according to an initial police investigation.
Cincinnati police chief Eliot Isaac presented the results of an internal investigation into the death of Kyle Plush on Monday before the city council’s law and safety committee, providing details of the 911 call and the police response.
Among the information released Monday: the city’s computer-assisted dispatching system experienced difficulties throughout the call; Kyle’s phone was in his pocket as he called, and he was using “Siri” caller technology to call 911; Kyle was not able to give back and forth answers to a dispatcher, and the phone disconnected his call; and the first dispatcher didn’t hear Kyle’s initial comments that he was “going to die here” because he spoke during an automated “What is your emergency” response message.
Assistant principal resigns, charged with meth possession
HAMILTON, OHIO
Police in Ohio say they found meth inside the office of a former elementary school assistant principal now charged with possession.
Hamilton police say the man turned himself in Friday. A Hamilton City Schools spokesman says the man has resigned, and the school board has withdrawn an offer for him to work as a summer school principal.
Police said they began investigating the former assistant principal after a vehicle he had rented was used in connection to a burglary April 26. Authorities say he had no knowledge or involvement in the burglary, but investigators later concluded he had a connection to illegal drugs.
Malley's Chocolates says hacker stole customer information
CLEVELAND
Malley’s Chocolates is warning 3,400 online customers that their credit- or debit-card information might have been compromised by a computer hacker in March, during the Ohio candy company’s busy weeks before Easter.
The company based in suburban Cleveland says the data breach affected customers who made online orders but not those shopping in person at its nearly two dozen stores in Northeast Ohio.
Malley’s Chairman and co-owner Mike Malley told The Plain Dealer in Cleveland tips from customers who spotted fraud involving their accounts led to further investigation that confirmed the breach. The company shut down its website for several days to address security concerns.