YOUNGSTOWN NORTH SIDE Bullet holes in house spur resident to action

The homeowner says the mayor has promised action.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- James Easton says he's had it with thugs terrorizing his North Side neighborhood.
"I'm going to sit in the mayor's office until they do something," Easton vowed Monday morning, pointing to bullet holes in his house. "We're tired of it."
Easton, a 55-year-old truck driver, lives in a two-story house at 1219 Margaret St. He left home at 4 a.m. Saturday and returned Sunday afternoon to find bullets had penetrated the driveway side of his house.
Two bullets traveled through a bedroom door and lodged into a wall, and another entered the bathroom. Police dug out the bullets and took them as evidence.
Easton's blue siding has scars from a previous shooting. He said he has complained for years -- to two former police chiefs -- without any satisfaction.
He said the straight-on trajectory leaves no doubt where the gunman stood Sunday.
"I can tell [the shots] came from next door," he said. "Why can't they red-tag it and tear it down?''
The two-story house at 1225 Margaret is vacant, with windows missing on the second floor and overgrown bushes. The front door is boarded over.
To the rear of the house is another, apparently occupied structure.
Mahoning County records show the house and property, worth about $11,000, has delinquent taxes of $123.
What Naples did
Easton said the young men who stay at the home were confronted several years ago by then-Councilman Joseph W. Naples.
Naples chased and detained two teenage boys in 1995 who he said broke bottles and set leaves on fire. Naples was later acquitted of abduction.
The boys were charged with arson of a vacant house.
After speaking to The Vindicator Monday morning, Easton went downtown to voice his concerns to Mayor George M. McKelvey.
"He was really good about it," Easton said later, adding he was ready to stage a sit-in. "Hopefully the house in the front will come down in two days. I think they're going to inspect the house in the back, too."
Easton also visited the office of Police Chief Robert E. Bush Jr., who is unavailable until Wednesday.
Councilman Richard Atkinson, D-3rd, could not be reached.
Easton also stopped at the detective division this morning, said Lt. Thomas Mylott. The complaint has been assigned to a detective, he said.
Records show Easton's house was burglarized in 1999 and shot at in 2000.
What witness said
One of Easton's neighbors, who asked that her name not be used, said she heard the gunfire Sunday and agrees that the shots came from the house next to Easton's. "I was afraid to look out," the woman said.
Easton and his neighbor say they're upset because they pay taxes and expect to have a safe place to live in return.
The woman also identified the boys as the ones whom Naples confronted in 1995. She said trouble starts when they get together with their friends.
"We call them the big blue house boys," the woman said. "I've seen 14 to 15 thugs going in there."
The woman said she was afraid to leave her house Sunday by the front and went out the back. She likened the gunfire to the OK Corral, site of a famous gunfight in Arizona in 1881.
Easton said he's tried for years to get the city to do something.
Police, he said, tell him they can't baby-sit.
"This is crazy," Easton said. "I'd be safer in jail than in this neighborhood."
meade@vindy.com