YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County OVI Task Force, in collaboration with the Ohio State Highway Patrol, made eight OVI arrests during its sobriety checkpoint in the area of 1535 Mahoning Ave. from 10 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday.

In addition to OVI, there was one felony arrest for drug abuse, one arrest for drug paraphernalia, one summons for no operator’s license and six citations for no seatbelt.

A Youngstown police report states that at 12:09 a.m. Saturday, task force members were at Mahoning and Halls Heights avenues when a man was arrested for OVI and taken to the Youngstown Police Department to provide a urine sample.

At 11:134 p.m., another man was stopped at the checkpoint under suspicion of being under the influence, a report states.

The OVI Task Force is funded by a federal grant, which is administered through the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

FLEEING AND BURGLARY

In an unrelated incident, Elijah Smith, 23, was arraigned Monday in Youngstown Municipal Court on felony charges of burglary and failure to comply in a Saturday incident in which he allegedly fled from police after an officer tried to make a traffic stop because of notifications coming up on a law-enforcement-only database regarding criminal allegations.

The officer was sitting in a parking lot on Logan Avenue near Tod Avenue at 3:57 p.m. Saturday when Smith’s car passed the officer, who saw notifications regarding matters such as burglary and violating a protection order, a police report states.

The officer tried to catch up to the vehicle on Hubbard Road. Smith pulled into a parking lot, but Smith would not listen to the officer’s commands, started the car and drove away, leading to a chase through the East, North and South sides of the city. The chase ended with Smith crashing the car at South and Dickson avenues on the South Side and Smith fleeing on foot.

The officer deployed his stun gun and Smith continued to fight officers. Smith was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital for treatment of injuries before being taken to the Mahoning County jail.

In addition to the burglary and failure to comply charges, Smith was arraigned Monday on charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle, violating a protection order, failure to stop after an accident and driving under suspension.

The report states that the failure to stop after an accident charge was because Smith struck another vehicle on Interstate 680 Saturday.

The report states that an officer advised the officer involved in the attempted traffic stop that a woman had alleged earlier Saturday that Smith had broken into her house and would not return her car.