A Butler man will stand trial on a pair of felonies stemming from separate cases — both of which involved his running from city police.

In one of those incidents, he is accused of leaving behind a backpack police say had a loaded handgun in it.

District Judge William Fullerton ordered 26-year-old James E. Howard-George held for court on charges of possession of a firearm without a carry license, a felony, and resisting arrest, a misdemeanor, at one of two preliminary hearings held Tuesday.

But Fullerton, in that same case, dismissed the most serious charge, another felony for convicts not to possess a firearm.

At the second hearing, Howard-George was held for trial on a charge of flight to avoid apprehension, also a felony. He remains in the Butler County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bond.

Patrolman Michael Sulerud Jr. testified he came upon the defendant about 8:30 p.m. March 6 after police received a report of three males assaulting a female in the area of Pullman Park and Pillow Street.

The officer, on cross-examination by Howard-George's attorney, public defender Charles Nedz, admitted the anonymous caller did not provide a lot of information about the alleged assault.

He told Nedz the report did not describe the males or the female, or give details about the assault.

Sulerud said he later stopped the only three males he saw in the area after getting the call. He identified the trio as Howard-George, Anthony Blackwell Jr., 23, of Pittsburgh and a 15-year-old Butler boy.

“What, if anything, regarding their behavior did you believe to be suspicious” Nedz asked Sulerud.

“They were coming from a high drug area (and) they continued to walk away,” the officer said. “James Howard-George did not want to speak with me. He kept trying to walk away.”

Sulerud told Nedz that he did not believe the males were armed or dangerous but he searched them for “officer safety,” in keeping with standard police procedure.

Police arrested Blackwell when they learned there was an out-of-county bench warrant for him.

Howard-George let police search the backpack he was carrying, Sulerud said. But as he handed the backpack to an officer, he “turned away from myself and the other officers on scene.”

The defendant ran toward the back of Pullman Park. Another officer deployed his Taser and one of the probes hit the suspect, but it had “no effect,” the officer said.

Police gave chase over a gravel lot and across the swinging bridge, but they lost him in the area of the 500 block of West Diamond Street.

A search of the backpack, Sulerud said, turned up a .22-caliber pistol, with one chambered round.

Later, a check of Howard-George's criminal history found one specific conviction, in 2016, for having a firearm without a carry license, a first-degree misdemeanor, which Sulerud said prohibited him from possessing any guns.

Following testimony, Nedz argued the officer's interpretation of the law was incorrect. After Fullerton reviewed the crimes code, he agreed with Nedz and dismissed that charge.

At Howard-George's second hearing, Patrolman Ryan Doctor testified about the circumstances of his eventual arrest March 31.

Doctor said he was monitoring traffic on South Monroe Street when he saw a car fail to stop at a stop sign, and conducted a traffic stop near McClain Street.

“A male jumped out of the passenger side of the vehicle,” Doctor said. “The male looked back at me. I saw it was James Howard-George.”

He said he knew there was an arrest warrant for the defendant on charges stemming from the March 6 incident.

Doctor ran after Howard-George through yards along McClain Street and across Spring Street. Lt. Brian Grooms, K-9 officer, and his partner, Chooch, joined in the chase.

“The only time that (the defendant) stopped after I announced my police presence multiple times during the pursuit,” the officer testified, “was when the canine was deployed, and he finally surrendered.”