By WARREN DILLAWAY - Staff Writer
The 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol bestowed on the average citizen manifests itself in a variety of ways in a culture inundated with Jerry Springer and Internet blogs.
A recent standoff on Bunker Hill Road in Ashtabula included dozens of people hanging around at the intersection of Bunker Hill Road and Washington Avenue, as police officers isolated a robbery suspect in a home. The crowd was well-behaved but drawn to the experience within a short distance of a potentially dangerous situation. The standoff ended peacefully when the suspect surrendered.
“I had to tell a couple of people to get off the street (and onto the sidewalk),” said Sgt. John Koski. He said the standoff went very well with cooperation among various city and county law-enforcement organizations.
Keeping the public safe is the first order of business.
“Our primary concern is to isolate the suspect,” Koski said.
He said this situation escalated into a special weapons and tactics team call because the suspect refused to communicate with the police. Koski said he personally felt that he had a good rapport with the suspect but without communication, police had to set up a perimeter.
“We’re challenged as far as manpower. Our people have to do their jobs,” Koski said of police handling the details of the incident.
Crowd control can become an issue when a member of the crowd, or perhaps a family member, interjects himself or herself into the situation. He said that can mean that several officers are then sidetracked from their main job at the incident site to deal with a single individual.
“You have to watch because bad things happen quick,” Koski said of a situation that could involve firearms being discharged.
Ashtabula County Prosecutor Thomas Sartini said people should not hang out at the scene and read about it in the paper, later.
“The worst thing you can do is put (bystanders’) picture in the paper,” Sartini said of people taking photos at the scene. He said people always hang out at unusual events, but the technology, cell phone cameras and so on, change the ways people can respond.
For the last several months, a variety of charges have been filed relating to the assault of police officers, or in one case a firefighter, according to Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court records.
Sartini said charges are filed when there is an injury to a police officer or an aggravated situation. He said the County Prosecutor’s Office won’t stand for police officers being attacked.
“We don’t back off,” Sartini said.
Ashtabula Police Chief Robert Stell said injuries and assaults to police officers have been reduced significantly in the last five years since the department purchased TASER devices. He said having five police dogs helps, as well.
“Officers reach for the TASER, and they surrender,” Stell said. “The odds have tilted in our favor.”
A number of area law-enforcement officials said the illegal methamphetamine problem has slowed during the last several years because of the strict regulation of precursor products but heroin has made a comeback. Stell said for a decade heroin was not really an issue, but it has come back to the streets of Ashtabula.
“We’ve had a dramatic increase in heroin the last two to three years,” he said.
Murders and other high-profile crimes seem to come in waves, according to Sartini and Stell.
“The murders seem to come in groups,” Sartini said.
He said there seems to be consistent levels of violent crimes, like domestic violence and drunk driving. Sartini said almost all of the crime in the county stems from illegal drugs, including property crimes relating to people trying to get money to buy drugs.
