January 19, 2019
www.the-review.com
A man on parole was arrested after he broke a police cruiser window and drove away with it, and when they caught him, identified himself as the officer who’d been assigned to the cruiser.
Joseph M. Memmer, 31, of 7929 Mount Pleasant St. NW in Jackson Township, still was behind the wheel and had the officer’s ID and personal belongings when he was arrested at 11:59 p.m. Friday in the 3100 block of Wolverine Street NE in Canton, Stark County Jail records show.
He was about 5 miles away from where the car was taken.
Cruiser No. 28 had been locked and parked in the 400 block of Walnut Avenue NE at 11:12 p.m. Friday, said Sgt. Roger Cochran of the Canton Police Department’s Patrol Division. Cochran said he did not know how far away from it the assigned officer was at the time.
According to the jail records, Memmer smashed out a window to get the “on-duty police cruiser” and drove away. When they found him, he was still behind the wheel and had to be forcibly removed from it.
He continued to struggle with police as they tried to arrest him.
Memmer was on parole and had been assigned to the Community Treatment and Correction Center, a halfway house licensed by the prison system at 1200 Market Ave. S, where he reportedly left without authorization, the jail records show.
He had just been released from prison Nov. 14 after serving time for failure to comply with police and felony theft in Summit County, according to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records.
Summit County court records show he stole a 2016 GMC Yukon from a car dealership on Nov. 7 and then led police on a chase. The court records also show he went to prison in 2012, 2009 and 2007 for burglary and theft.
Memmer was booked into the Stark County Jail on charges of resisting arrest, obstructing official business, escape, impersonating a police officer, disrupting public services, theft of a motor vehicle, vandalism and two counts of felony theft.
The jail records did not say what department owned the cruiser nor list the name of the officer to which it had been assigned.
He remained in the jail Saturday, held in lieu of $51,500 bond pending a Canton Municipal Court hearing.
