Tuesday, January 29, 2019
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Jurors believed that a man charged with firing shots last January at two city police officers was a threat.
They found Gerald Wainwright, 26, guilty Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court of two counts of felonious assault on a police officer for the early Jan. 27, 2018, exchange of gunfire with officers Brandon Caraway and Timothy Edwards, who had both served in the Marines. Edwards had seen combat in Afghanistan.
Wainwright and his attorney, Michael Kivlighan, told jurors that Wainwright did fire a gun, but not at the officers. Kivlighan said he fired the gun away from them so they would leave Wainwright alone and he could get away from them.
In his closing argument, assistant Prosecutor Michael Yacovone said the officers were threatened. Edwards, in fact, fired several shots through the windshield of their cruiser, because he thought the situation was that dire.
“Why would he do that if he’s [Wainwright] not a direct threat? Because he’s firing at them, ladies and gentlemen,” Yacovone said.
The two officers were on patrol about 2:30 a.m. when they spotted Wainwright, who was in a high-crime area, wearing a mask, carrying a backpack and walking in the street even though there was a sidewalk available. The city has an ordinance that says no one can walk in the street if the sidewalk is available for them.
Caraway testified the two wanted to question Wainwright but before they could, he ran away, then fired several shots from a handgun he was carrying while he was running backward at the old Hillman Street School at Hillman Street and Princeton Avenue. The two officers returned fire, striking Wainwright three times.
The officers were not injured.
Kivlighan said his client did not point his gun at officers. Kivlighan said there were no bullets that struck their cruiser, and police did not take two bullets found near the crime scene for testing because it would prove Wainwright was firing away from the officers.
Sentencing will be at a later date. An internal affairs investigation found the shooting justified.