A 20-year-old Roche Way man, Michael West, who has been charged with assaulting two Boardman police officers on July 23, had been arrested in Nov. 2015 in Youngstown where he was also charged with assaulting a police officer.
      West appeared in Boardman Court last week, where he entered a plea of not guilty to the assault charges and was given legal counsel at public cost.
      Back in 2015, West also received a court-appointed lawyer, and on Mar. 21, 2016 he entered a plea of guilty to assaulting Youngstown policeman Jacob Short, and escaped a jail sentence when Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney imposed a sentence of two years of community control, noting if West violated the term of the sentence, a parole board “may impose a prison sentence” of up to 18 months.
      Short missed work time due to injuries suffered when trying to arrest West.
      About seven months later, West was back before Judge Sweeney for violating the terms of his probation.
      The judge doubled its community control sanctions on West, ordering the man to be monitored by the Adult Parole Authority for a period of four years. He was also ordered to serve 30 days in jail.
      While on the probation for the 2015 assault on the Youngstown policeman, West fought on July 23 with Boardman police officers Evan Beil and Michael Manis, who had been called to the Sylvia Lane area on a 3:00 a.m. call of a man pounding on the window of a residence.
      When Officer Beil located West in the Sylvia Lane neighborhood, the policeman said West was “screaming about Jesus and when he spotted the patrol car, he began to rapidly approach me screaming ‘shoot me, fu..ing shoot me’ at the top of his lungs.”
      According to Beil, West tried to run away, and was then hit twice with tasers.
      “He grabbed the taser wires and ripped them from his chest and again began to flee on foot,” Beil said.
      According to the officer, West abruptly stopped running and turned towards Beil with both fists raised and assumed a boxing position.
      At this point, Ptl. Manis arrived on the scene, as Beil was now fighting with West. After a struggle, Beil and Manis managed to gain control of West, who was placed into handcuffs, a spit shield and also placed in leg shackles.
      Despite the restraints, police said that West continue to struggle with them. He was eventually “secured’ to an ambulance cart and taken to a hospital.
      Beil and Manis also went to a hospital for treatment of their injuries.
      West claimed he had been high on LSD at the time of his encounter with Boardman police.
      West has been lodged in the Mahoning County Jail since July 25.
      When West escaped a jail sentence back in Mar., 2016 (for the Nov., 2015 assault on a Youngstown police officer), Judge Sweeney said “A non-prison sanction does not demean the seriousness of the offense, and a non-prison sanction will adequately punish [West] and protect the public...Factors decreasing seriousness outweigh those increasing seriousness and there is less likelihood of recidivism.”