YOUNGSTOWN — A young man was the first of the three alleged victims in the Lynell Stanley felonious trial to testify Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Under questioning by Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Katherine Jones, he testified that he was on the front porch of his home on East Lucius Avenue on Oct. 13 when he and two 15-year-olds with him saw a black pickup truck pull up near his house. He said he saw a “girl walking by” and a male get out of the truck and “start hitting her, was aggressive.”

Jones asked if he responded in some way.

“Not at the moment,” but he got off the porch. She asked why.

“To calm him down,” he said of the male who was hitting the woman.

“How did you try to calm him down?” she asked.

“Just to hug him,” the young man replied, adding that the man, later identified as Stanley, “was aggressive” and “put his fist out.”

The young man said, “My first instinct was to pick him up and slam him,” which he did, the young man said. Jones asked what happened next, and he said, “We started fighting.”

He said the man hit him in the lip and head. Jurors in the courtroom of Judge Anthony D’Apolito earlier in the trial saw a photo of the young man’s injuries. There was a lot of blood around his mouth, and there was a vertical mark under the hair on his forehead.

When Jones asked the young man if he thought the other male had a gun, he said he did not know, but he did not see one in the other male’s hands.

The young man said that after being hit, “I was mostly blacked out.”

He said he went inside his house, the police were called and an ambulance came. He had to have about seven stitches in his head. He later pointed to the defendant and identified him as the man who injured him.

On cross-examination by defense attorney Nick Brevetta, the young man was asked his size and he said he is about 5 feet 10 inches and 313 pounds.

Brevetta asked what happened when he approached Stanley, 40.

HUG/BEAR HUG

The young man said he “hugged (Stanley), I let him go. He had his fist out, and he was doing this like he was going to punch.”

Brevetta asked if he was saying that he “thought (Stanley) was going to punch him after you had already grabbed him, and then you tackled him, right?”

The young man did not answer right away but agreed. In answering the next question, he said he did not “touch” Stanley first because he hugged Stanley.

He agreed that after Stanley put his fist out, he tackled Stanley. He also agreed that when Stanley had his fist out, it was in the young man’s face.

Brevetta asked him if he is a big guy, and the young man agreed he is. Brevetta asked, “Wouldn’t you be concerned if a big guy you didn’t know just grabbed you?”

“Yea,” the young man answered.

Brevetta asked who else was at his home at the time, and he said his two 15-year-old friends were there, his mom and two other males. The 15-year-olds were on the porch with him.

Brevetta asked the young man if he saw Stanley hit the woman Stanley was with, and he answered, “Yes, Sir.”

“Did you see the whole incident?” Brevetta asked.

“Yes, sir,” he replied, saying he saw Stanley from the time Stanley got out of the truck. He agreed he does not know what happened before that.

Brevetta asked the young man if Stanley hit him twice, and the young man agreed and said Stanley hit his two younger friends one time each.

Brevetta handed the young man a statement the young man gave to Youngstown police the day after the incident. It stated that Stanley had a gun. Brevetta asked why he did not mention a gun in his statement, but indicated in his testimony that Stanley had a gun. The young man seemed to say he “did not remember.”

Brevetta asked the young man if some of what he told police happened was “what other people have told you.” The young man said, “I know some of it.”

Assistant Prosecutor Jones asked him why he “bear hugged” Stanley, and the young man said “to calm him.” Jones asked why he said in his statement Stanley had a gun.

The young man said it was because he heard something that sounded like the sound a gun makes when a person “cocks” it.

Under questioning by Brevetta, the young man said he had cocked a gun several times but never fired one. He said he was sure he heard a gun being cocked. And he has heard a gun being cocked about four times in his life, he said.

15-YEAR-OLDS

The two 15-year-olds testified, with one of them saying the young man gave Stanley “kind of like a bear hug, and (Stanley) wouldn’t calm down.” He said Stanley “tried to elbow” the young man, but the young man “put his leg under (Stanley’s) leg and tried to slam him, but it ain’t go too good.”

He said he saw Stanley hit the young man in the nose and split the young man’s lip. “We all started fighting after that,” he said. He thinks he blacked out for several seconds after being hit. He was taken to the hospital for treatment, he said.

The boy said at one point Stanley broke a glass bottle and chased his brother with it.

He said Stanley followed him, his brother and the young man to the Gas Mart gas station on South Avenue and banged on the door after the boys had locked it.

DETECTIVE

Youngstown Police Detective Hannah Short testified to being the investigator in the case and not being able to obtain any video from the neighborhood where the incident occurred. She said she obtained video from the gas station. She confirmed the three victims had injuries.

Then she started to testify regarding jail calls, but Brevetta challenged whether the calls could be used during the trial, resulting in a long discussion in the judge’s chambers. The trial resumes today.