YOUNGSTOWN TRIAL Father speaks of son's slaying

The family had lived at the house only four days before the shooting.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Jiyen C. Dent Sr. leaned forward in his chair, a dazed look on his face, as he listened to himself reporting his baby's murder.
"Please hurry up," Dent told a 911 emergency telephone operator. "There's a lot of blood on him."
Then after a long pause, Dent spoke again, saying softly, "I think he's dead."
Dent was listening to an audiotape recording of the telephone call he made to 911 the night his house on Rutledge Drive was sprayed with 10 bullets from an assault rifle in March 2003. One of the bullets struck his 3-month-old son, Jiyen Jr., in the head, killing him.
Prosecutors played the tape Monday for jurors in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, where 26-year-old John Drummond Jr. of Allerton Court is on trial. Authorities say Drummond was the one who fired the shots.
The trial was to resume today in the courtroom of Judge Maureen A. Cronin.
Drummond faces charges of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, felonious assault and improperly discharging a firearm into a home. If he is convicted of the aggravated murder charges, he could face the death penalty.
Had just moved in
Dent and his girlfriend, LaToya Butler, were among the witnesses presented Monday by prosecutors. They told of how they'd moved into the rented house on the East Side with their baby four days before the shooting.
The couple had spent the evening moving the baby's clothes and toys to the Rutledge Drive house from their old address on Avondale Avenue, on the city's South Side. It was late at night and they hadn't eaten, so Butler was baking a pizza for them while Dent watched a movie in the living room.
Shortly before 11:30 p.m., Dent said he heard gunshots coming from outside.
"I didn't pay much attention at first," he said. "You hear gunshots all the time in the neighborhoods."
But when he started seeing chunks of plaster and wood flying off the walls, he sprang from the couch and told Butler to get down on the floor. Dent scooped up the baby, who was sitting in a plastic swing, and dived into a hallway for cover.
That's when he noticed blood on the baby's face and a small hole just below the child's left eye.
Paramedic's testimony
Eugene M. November, a paramedic from Rural Metro Ambulance, was dispatched to the scene. November said that when he walked into the house, he saw Dent sitting in a reclining chair, holding the baby on his chest. The first thing he noticed was a large hole in the back of the child's head.
"It was obvious that he had suffered mortal wounds," November said, explaining why he did not administer first aid to the baby. Instead, the baby was wrapped in blankets and removed from the house.
November smiled nervously when assistant prosecutor Kelly Johns handed him three photographs of the wounded child, and would only glance at them. The photographs then were passed among the jurors.
Neither Dent nor Butler was hit by the gunfire that night. They never stayed in the house again, and it has since been rented to someone else. Jurors were taken by bus to visit the scene before they began hearing testimony.
In his opening statement, assistant prosecutor Timothy Franken said he believes the shots were intended to kill either Dent or Butler, not the baby.
Defense attorneys James Gentile and Ronald Yarwood say Drummond was not the shooter.
bjackson@vindy.com