Two arrested after car, foot chase


By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Police on Thursday found 668 painkiller pills, crack cocaine, $754 cash, a gun and made two arrests.

Aaron Lee Rogers III, 23, of West Hylda Avenue is in the Mahoning County jail on weapons and drug charges and Alexander Blandon, 34, of Market Street, is in the jail on drug charges as well as a charge of failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer.

The two were arrested about 5:15 p.m. after a car and foot chase when police tried to pull over a car Blandon was driving on South Avenue for running a stop sign.

Reports said Blandon was driving well over the speed limit on residential streets as children were playing, swerving in and out of parked cars and at one point went into a yard before the car stopped on Cambridge Avenue and both men ran.

Blandon ignored several orders to stop and show his hands before he was arrested in the drive of a home in the 700 block of Cambridge Avenue after being shot with a stun weapon. Officers found several boxes of painkillers in his pockets as well as three bags of crack cocaine and a bag of suspected cocaine, reports said.

Rogers was arrested in the back yard of a home in the 700 block of Cambridge Avenue. He had the cash on him, and officers found .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic pistol a witness said he threw while running from police. The gun was loaded and had an extended magazine, reports said. Other painkillers were found in the car, along with a box of sandwich bags that matched the bags found on Blandon.

The officers who tried to pull Blandon were working the area as part of a federal grant the city uses to fund extra patrols in areas of the city where gun and drug crimes are high.