Youngstown cops probe two assaults

YOUNGSTOWN -- Police are investigating two assaults involving firearms that happened within minutes of each other Saturday.
A 32-year-old Belmont Avenue woman told officers she was walking to a corner store just before 5:30 p.m. when she was confronted by her 53-year-old ex-boyfriend in a parking lot at Arlington and Belmont.
Reports say the man began beating the woman, then pulled a handgun from his waistband and hit her repeatedly on the head with the butt of the gun.
The woman eventually ran off, and the man took her purse and left.
Fifteen minutes later across town, two men, 22 and 23, where sitting in a car in a driveway on West Boston Avenue when a shotgun blast rang out.
The men jumped from the car and ran when a window shattered.
Police said one man received pellet wounds to his arm, shoulder, upper back and head. He was treated at a local hospital.
He told police he thinks the attack was retaliation by someone with whom he had a "beef" a year ago and had run into recently.
Reports say police found bags of marijuana in the yard at the Boston Avenue address.
No arrests have been made in either assault.