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LIBERTY – A Youngstown man remained in jail Thursday afternoon after he was accused of causing a disturbance on a bus Tuesday morning.
Larry Philips, 26, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and obstructing official business and appeared on a charge of disrupting public service in front of Girard Municipal Court Judge Jeffery Adler on Thursday.
According to a police report, officers were called to a Goldie Road WRTA bus stop for a disturbance on one of the buses and officers spoke with the bus driver, who said a man, later identified as Phillips, was causing a disturbance. Phillips was ordered to leave the bus.
The report states Phillips tried walking quickly away from the officer without speaking to him, but the officer said he was not free to go and requested his identification. Phillips flipped open his wallet and showed it to the officer from a distance, making it so he could not read it.
Phillips eventually handed it to the officer and quickly asked for it back before the officer could look at it. The officer eventually handed it back to Phillips, who began walking away from officers at a fast, aggressive pace, and began arguing with the officer, who called more officers to his location due to Phillips’s irate behavior, the report states.
The report states the officer demanded Phillips remove his hands from his pockets for officer safety, and Phillips continued to scream and cause a public disturbance in front of Walmart customers attempting to enter the store. The officer grabbed Phillips’s left wrist and tricep to gain control and arrest him, but he was unable to do so.
The report states the officer began forcefully escorting Phillips toward his cruiser, but he kept pulling away from the officer to avoid being arrested.
Another officer arrived on the scene to help the reporting officer, and a third officer pulled out a stun weapon, warning him to comply or else he would shock him, but Phillips reportedly continued to resist.
The third officer’s first stun weapon deployment was ineffective and the second officer was able to get handcuffs on one of Phillips’s wrists, and a second deployment caused him to react, allowing officers to handcuff him, the report states.
Officers searched Phillips’s bookbag and his smaller red bag, which only had personal miscellaneous items in it.
Phillips is set to appear back in court Nov. 19, court records show.