Man shot, dumped near high school

The shooting took place in a normally quite neighborhood, police said.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A Girard man was shot four times in the back and dumped from a car that sped away from the Dewey Woods area late Wednesday, Youngstown police said.
Jerome Morgan, 29, of Forsythe Avenue, was in critical condition and undergoing surgery late Wednesday, a St. Elizabeth Health Center official said.
Neighbors told police they heard shots about 8:30 p.m. and saw a car speeding from the scene near the corner of Erie and Pasadena streets. Morgan was found lying in the grass near the sidewalk on Erie, just past the intersection with Pasadena, police said.
The shooting surprised police, who described the neighborhood -- which includes Cardinal Mooney High School just two blocks away -- as very quiet and stable.
"There's very little problems in this area," police Capt. Robert Kane said.
Police would not say what evidence was being collected at the scene. Morgan is familiar to Girard police, an official there said. "He's been involved with drugs in the past," one officer said.
Violent stretch
Wednesday's shooting continues a particularly violent stretch for Youngstown. After just two homicides combined in October and November, detectives handled five killings in December.
The most recent occurred Dec. 28 when Richard E. Owens was shot twice in the forehead just past midnight on Woodland Avenue on the South Side and died later that day. A friend was later charged with negligent homicide in the case.