99 years ago in 1919:

William L. Rook, city editor of the Youngstown Vindicator, while on his way home from the paper around 2 a.m., was run down by an unknown automobile driver at Market and Boardman streets, suffering a compound fracture of the right leg just above the ankle.

The driver failed to stop and Mr. Rook, in a semi-conscious state, managed to pull himself to the sidewalk at the corner where he lay for some time before being discovered. He was taken to St. Elizabeth Hospital where the fracture was reduced.

50 years ago in 1969:

An attempt to steal a safe at the Viets Motor Co. in Vienna was thwarted by an employee who returned to the garage for parts.

Trumbull deputies reported the employee, whose identity was not disclosed, saw two men inside the building around 8 p.m.

The employee dashed across the road to the home of the owner, Howard Viets, to get a revolver, deputies said, and when he came back to the building he saw three men drive off at high speed in a car that had been parked at a nearby tavern.

Deputies said the entrance into the building had been gained by forcing a lock on a door leading to the body shop area. The combination of the office safe had been removed but nothing was taken from the safe.

A wrecking bar, chisel and two hammers were left behind. The Viets employee got a license number of the car in which the suspects are believed to have escaped. It had been reported stolen earlier in the evening.

25 years ago in 1994:

National media interest in Tribune Chronicle reporter Lisa A. Abraham’s jail stay for refusing to testify before a grand jury had broadened prior to her release from 22 days on civil contempt charges. National television networks ABC and NBC were denied access to the facility.

“I bend over backward for the media, but enough is enough,” Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas Altiere said, citing the safety and security of prisoners and employees as reason for refusing entry — a decision backed by a 1978 Supreme Court ruling, according to the prosecutor’s office,

Interest in the reporter’s story followed a New York Times story and included The Washington Post, KFI-Radio in Los Angeles, National Public Radio and Canadian Broadcasting.

10 years ago in 2009:

Local attorney Rob Kokor argued to Ohio Supreme Court justices in what he said might change the way officers test suspected impaired drivers.

The attorney said an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper didn’t allow enough time to administer his field sobriety tests and couldn’t properly identify the portable Breathalyzer he used to charge a 28-year-old woman for intoxication after he pulled her over near the intersection of New Road and state Route 46 in Austintown for expired license tags. The trooper smelled alcohol on the driver’s breath, but the attorney argued, “The smell of alcohol alone doesn’t constitute valid probable cause.”

Kokor and attorneys for the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers also said the portable Breathalyzers used by law enforcement officers were unreliable and inaccurate.

“I don’t know if the trooper didn’t just slap this thing together in his garage with some duct tape,” Kokor said.

— Compiled from Tribune Chronicle archives by Emily Earnhart