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WARREN -- A city man was charged with several offenses after a Sunday night incident that began with police trying to pull over a car for dark window tint at Front Street and Nevada Avenue Southwest that matched the description of a vehicle that had been involved in gunfire hitting a house.
Freddie T. Washington, 19, of Parkman Road NW was arraigned Monday in Warren Municipal Court on charges including felony failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer and misdemeanor hit-skip. The chase ended in North Jackson about 15 miles away. There were four men in the car.
The car did not pull over in the 7:15 p.m. episode and fled east on Market Street with another officer and his trainee assisting. Speeds of 90 miles per hour were attained near Austin Avenue. Then the car slowed to about 25 miles per hour and tried to cut between two cars at the Tod Avenue intersection and struck another vehicle, disabling the right passenger tire, but the vehicle continued south on Tod with speeds about 65 miles per hour near Oak Street and turned onto Palmyra Avenue. It then accelerated to 80 miles per hour as sparks flew from the damaged passenger tire.
The vehicle was reaching 100 miles per hour as it continued south on Tod Avenue in light traffic. As the cruiser and fleeing vehicle approached Salt Springs Road in Lordstown, two Lordstown officers were seen blocking traffic and then joining the pursuit as flames came from the rear of the fleeing car near New Road, the report states.
With the car on fire, the driver slowed, and the occupants fled on foot. Washington, the driver, fled into a cornfield. A passenger, 20, from Kent and Warren, fled also. He does not appear to have been charged. Two other passengers did not run and were detained at 3062 S. Salem-Warren Road in North Jackson. There is no indication they were charged.
Flames were coming from a wheel well, so an officer used his fire extinguisher on the flames. The officer found and took possession of a cellphone from the car. Additional officers arrived and took Washington and the passenger who fled into custody. The car "caught fire," and the Jackson Township Fire Department extinguished the flames.