Staff report

BOARDMAN — A local man is in trouble after allegedly taking his infant on a drunken late-night walk.

Stephen A. Rivers, 30, of Tod Avenue in Boardman, is due in Mahoning County Boardman Court this morning, charged with one felony count of child endangering and one count of public intoxication, a minor misdemeanor.

The police report states that officers came to the home just before 2 a.m. Sunday after the child’s mother reported that a “heavily intoxicated” Rivers picked up the 7-week-old baby, walked out the door and headed north on Tod Avenue.

Police had been at the house two hours earlier when the woman reported Rivers for starting a fight, though no violence or threats of violence occurred, the report states. Police noted that he had trouble maintaining his balance and could not concentrate on the conversation at that time.

When they returned, they started patrolling around the area and soon found Rivers about one-third of a mile away, on Nevada Avenue, very near Southern Boulevard.

The report states that Rivers was “standing in the roadway swaying back and forth for balance, and struggling to hold (the infant) in his left arm.” The police described the roadway as pitch black and said Rivers was wearing dark clothing and had no flashlight or reflective material that would allow passing cars to see him.

The report states that Rivers immediately asked police to take the baby from him because he was having trouble holding him.

Police arrested him and returned the child to his home. They brought Rivers to the Mahoning County jail. The report states that Rivers has a history of being uncooperative and was belligerent and yelling in the back of the police vehicle. Court records show he has prior felony and misdemeanor convictions and charges — as recently as last year and dating back to 2014 — for child endangering, domestic violence, OVI, improper handling of a firearm in a car, failure to stop after an accident and others.