Deputy injured in court
Sheriff Samuel Romano has asked Washington police to investigate an outburst late Monday afternoon in Washington County Juvenile Court that resulted in a sheriff’s deputy sustaining a swollen lip.
Judge Gary Gilman was in his chambers after 4 p.m. and had not yet convened court in the case of teenage co-defendants charged with the theft of a gun from an unlocked vehicle in the Mon Valley.
The co-defendants were talking to each other in the courtroom, and Assistant District Attorney Michael Fagella wanted them to be separated. One of the teens would not heed the instruction to cease the conversation, Romano said, even after deputies moved the two apart, and when his mother intervened in an attempt to stop him, he cursed at her.
The youth still would not comply, so a deputy removed him from the courtroom and was also cursed. The boy either elbowed the deputy or shoved him with his shoulder.
“He ended up with a fat lip,” said James Dalessandro, chief deputy sheriff. The deputy’s badge and name tag came off his shirt.
Because the youth was unruly, the deputy restrained him against a wall to keep the boy from leaping over the bannister separating the third-floor hallway from the courthouse rotunda.
“Some officers would’ve Tased that kid,” Dalessandro said. A third deputy stationed inside the front door of the courthouse heard the commotion and arrived to assist.
Another deputy carried the youth to the courthouse elevator, from which he was placed in a ground-floor holding cell. The deputy asked the youth if he sustained any injuries and needed to be transported to a hospital, which the teen declined, Romano said. He was returned to Jefferson County (Ohio) Juvenile Detention Center in Steubenville.
“So far in my investigation, the deputies acted appropriately and they did what they had to do,” Romano said Tuesday. The sheriff will confer with the district attorney’s office and seek any video surveillance of the incident.
Romano said it is likely the youth will be charged with aggravated assault. He did not know the exact ages of either of the co-defendants.