McDowell

BUTLER TWP — Police on Monday charged a 31-year-old Butler woman with hitting a township officer with a car during an apparent getaway last week at a shopping center on New Castle Road.

Shayna M. McDowell faces felony and other charges in the incident that took place shortly after 6:30 p.m. May 16 at Point Plaza.

State police on Friday arrested McDowell, who was already wanted on unrelated felony and misdemeanor drug warrants. Her list of cases is expected to mount, police said, as vice officers say they found more than 70 stamp bags of suspected heroin stuffed in her bra when they nabbed her in Summit Township.

She is being held in the Butler County Prison on $50,000 bail on charges related to the previously issued warrants.

In the latest case, Butler Township police said, the defendant is accused of hitting Patrolman Rachel Dovidio with her car on the evening of election day.

Dovidio and another officer had gone to the shopping plaza after a 911 hang-up call there, according to a police report.

Investigators said when the officers arrived, an employee at the Rite Aid pointed them to an intoxicated woman, later identified as McDowell, who had been “acting strange” in the store a short time earlier.

While the officers spoke to McDowell and another woman in the car, the defendant allegedly put the car in reverse and backed out of a parking space.

“In doing so,” the report said, “she struck Dovidio, pinching the officer between the car and (a) parked car. The officer was able to roll up and onto the hood of the suspect vehicle to avoid serious injury.”

Dovidio was not hurt but the incident touched off a manhunt for McDowell, who drove away and later took off running in woods around Alameda Park after abandoning the car.

Police about 45 minutes later recovered the car, which belongs to a Clay Township man, about a mile from Point Plaza, near the Butler Commons shopping plaza.

Officers, assisted by city police and state police, searched for McDowell through the night but to no avail.

Troopers eventually arrested her without incident about 3 p.m. Friday. Officers with the state police vice unit by chance happened to see her walking along the road and picked her up.

Investigators believe she had been staying for a couple days at a friend's home nearby in Summit Township.

Police said they searched McDowell and found her with 76 stamp bags of suspected heroin — five in her pocket and 71 in her bra.

The arresting officer said felony charges would likely be filed once the suspected drugs are tested and police receive toxicology reports.

McDowell was arraigned later that night on charges in separate arrest warrants issued earlier this year to county and state narcotics officers.

The Butler County Drug Task Force in January obtained their warrant for her following a drug investigation. She is accused of selling a police informant $40 in heroin on July 6, 2016, at Butler Memorial Park in Butler, according to court documents.

She faces drug trafficking charges in that case.

State police in February got their warrant for McDowell in connection with an investigation dating back to September 2015.

Vice officers allege in that case that she had 11 stamp bags of heroin hidden in her bra when she was arrested at an apartment building on West Jefferson Street in the city that was under police surveillance for drug activity.