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Columbiana police chief: Violent criminals won’t escape

COLUMBIANA – The city’s police chief is warning violent criminals: don’t come here.

“Don’t come here if you are going to do violent crime. We will find you. We will track you, and we won’t give up until we do get you,” Chief Tim Gladis said.

Gladis issued the warning during the Tuesday City Council meeting after first thanking the community, his officers and U.S. Marshals for their help in the resolution of two violent crimes this year.

Of the two, one was a rape and the other was a robbery at Save-A-Lot.

Gladis said U.S. Marshals picked up Robert Graffius, 40, of Boardman, who is currently in the county jail and facing a first-degree felony rape charge.

The county’s grand jury served a secret indictment on Graffius last week.

Gladis said Graffius is charged with raping a woman in the city in June.

“He was completely uncooperative. We were able to obtain information and evidence on who he was, including a video tape and places of where he had been. We were able to obtain DNA. We then served a search warrant on him for this DNA,” Gladis said.

He went on to say that while attempting to serve a secret indictment Graffius somehow found out and eluded police, at which point the department notified the U.S. Marshal’s service, who were able to pick him up in about three days.

Gladis also said it was through the help of people providing information that his department was able to identify the man who robbed the Save-A-Lot in July.

“We ran evidence through the nationwide database and served a search warrant for a DNA sample,” he said.

He did not release the man’s identity, as he is expected to be indicted in the future.

“That was a complicated case because of the individual running into the woods and disappearing from us for a while,” he said.

According to previous reports, an unarmed man entered the store on Fairfield Avenue through an unlocked employee entrance at 9:20 p.m. and grabbed a clerk from behind, pushed her to the front of the store and demanded money.By that time, however, the cash registers were empty since the store had already closed for the day. In turn, the man took the clerk’s purse and fled.

He was pursued by city officers as well as police and K-9 units from the East Palestine, Beaver Township and Springfield police departments, but he continued to evade them.

“We are blessed to live in a city that has almost no violent crime. I would like to recognize all of the people that helped with these cases. We thank the citizens of this community for coming forward with information that was crucial in identifying these individuals,” he said.

kwhite@mojonews.com

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