Staff photo / Ed Runyan Youngstown State University student Ezell Brown, 18, stands on the basketball court at the University Courtyard apartments, which is near the former Wick Pollock Inn on the YSU campus. The basketball court is where three boys stole Brown's backpack in October, leading him to chase and catch one of them and flag down YSU police. In the confusion that followed, Youngstown police took Brown and two of the juveniles into custody, falsely accusing Brown in a robbery the juveniles had committed nearby. Surveillance video, a detective, prosecutors and a municipal court judge later exonerated Brown.

YOUNGSTOWN — It’s been nearly five months since Youngstown State University student Ezell Brown, 18, was wrongly arrested while chasing boys who had stolen his backpack near the on-campus University Courtyard Apartments.

In that time, a Youngstown Municipal Court judge expunged the court and other records associated with Brown’s arrest.

Also, the last of the three juveniles who committed the thefts was recently sentenced in Mahoning County Juvenile Court to two years of detention in an Ohio Department of Youth Services facility.

Brown’s mother, Michelle Ezell Brown of Youngstown, said she appreciates knowing that the boys who committed the crimes were held accountable for it.

But the memories her son still carries of being charged and placed in a jail cell last October won’t be easy to forget.

“That traumatization — he can’t wish that away. It’s not that easy,” she said. “We just try to remind him that does not dictate your future,” she said. He remains a student at YSU.

Michelle Ezell Brown, who studied criminal justice at YSU, first brought the case to the public’s attention by posting a video on Facebook in which she explained her frustration with Youngstown police for wrongly arresting her son near the University Courtyard apartments soon after three juvenile males stole his backpack.

WHAT HAPPENED

The juveniles showed up at the Courtyard apartments basketball court, where Brown was shooting baskets alone. One of them started playing Brown one-on-one while the two others watched.

Suddenly one said, “Go, go, go,” and they fled — one of them with Brown’s backpack. Brown chased and caught one of them. Another of the juveniles returned on a bicycle.

But the third juvenile took off with the backpack.

Then YSU police arrived, taking custody of Brown and the two juveniles, despite Brown telling them he was the victim, not the thief.

The reason? Prior to arriving at the basketball court, the three juveniles robbed a man of his bicycle not far away while threatening to kill him. When Youngstown police arrived with the bike-theft victim, he stayed in the cruiser and identified all three males as the boys who robbed him.

It took a day or so for surveillance video obtained by Youngstown police Detective Jeff Kay to clear Brown of being one of the bike robbers and for city prosecutors and a municipal court judge to dismiss the felony charge filed against Brown.

“The people who know him support him 100 percent,” Michelle Ezell Brown said of her son. As far as people who don’t know him, it’s hard to tell whether being wrongly arrested will follow him during his life, she said.

She almost never uses social media but thinks it’s time for her to film another segment to update everyone.

“I’m glad there is an ending: I was telling the truth. Ezell was telling the truth,” she said.

She said the city took care of having the court records expunged, and she and city officials are talking about reimbursing the family for other costs.

STRESS DISORDER

Ezell Brown said his arrest has made him more alert to his surroundings than before. A doctor diagnosed him as having post traumatic stress disorder.

“I’m always watching my back for some odd reason, probably because of” the false arrest, he said last week. Brown showed a reporter the basketball court where the backpack theft took place and pointed to the direction where he chased the juveniles.

“I don’t listen to my music,” he said of walking to places on campus and elsewhere with earbuds in. “I’m always just watching around.”

The apartment complex, which is also where he lives, is a couple blocks northeast of the Youngstown Public Library on Wick Avenue where the bicycle theft took place.

Brown said the 24 hours he spent in custody and in the county jail were humiliating and confusing.

“I was put in a murder block,” he said of the maximum security area of the jail where he was housed.

“Being 18 and being treated like a prisoner, that was pretty bad,” he said. “They humiliate you. They take all your rights.”

During his day in jail, he had little understanding of what was going on. When he was arraigned, he listened to what the prosecutor said about his case, but “I didn’t understand most of it,” he said.

His mother spoke to YSU officials about surveillance video from the apartment complex, as did the Youngstown detective, and the videos cleared Brown of being involved.

Youngstown police Chief Robin Lees later expressed regret for Brown being arrested but defended the actions of the arresting officers and credited Kay for obtaining the evidence that proved Brown’s innocence and taking steps to get Brown’s charge dismissed quickly.

“Detective Jeff Kay almost immediately became aware that Ezell Brown was possibly not involved, and he contacted YSU,” Lees said.

YSU police advised Kay that it had video Kay “needed to see,” Lees said. It convinced Kay that “Ezell Brown was in fact a victim who through some very unusual circumstances turned up as part of the trio that was accused of stealing the bicycle,” Lees said.

ONE WHO GOT AWAY

The final juvenile involved in the case is Demetrius Foster, now 16, who was convicted of a reduced charge of disorderly conduct Feb. 25 in Mahoning County Juvenile Court in the theft of Brown’s backpack. He was sentenced to time already served at the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center. He was arrested on warrants in November and detained in JJC.

Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Annissa Modarelli and Kay said Foster was never charged with the Oct. 14 bicycle theft.

Kay said he is certain Foster was the third one involved in the bicycle theft — the one who got away — but he did not feel comfortable charging Foster without more evidence. Kay said he is “100 percent” sure Foster committed the crime, but “it’s not what we know. It’s what we can prove.”

After police wrongly accused Brown in the case, law enforcement was not going to take a chance of it happening again with Foster, Kay said.

At Foster’s Feb. 25 hearing, he was convicted of felonious assault with a specification that a gun was used in an unrelated case, and he was sentenced to at least two years in a DYS facility with the possibility or remaining there until his 21st birthday, according to the juvenile court.

In that case, Foster struck a juvenile in the back of the head with a gun Sept. 9. He also was convicted of a felony theft, which added six months in a DYS facility up to age 21 with credit for 96 days already served in JJC. In that case, Foster stole money, jewelry and other things from an adult Sept. 18.

Foster also was convicted of a misdemeanor criminal trespass offense from Nov. 25. His previous detention in JJC serves as his detention for that offense.

The two other juveniles involved in the bicycle and backpack thefts are 15 and 14. Both were convicted of felony robbery in the bike theft and misdemeanor theft of Brown’s backpack.

Judge Theresa Dellick gave both suspended sentences in a Department of Youth Services facility, meaning they are free on probation as long as they avoid future crimes.