Injuries delay probe in firefighter’s shooting
Steffin Gantt
Gunshot residue tests were given to both victims.
YOUNGSTOWN — It’s going to take a while to sort out what led up to an off-duty city firefighter’s being shot inside his house, who owns the marijuana-filled duffel bag found on a couch — and how his visitor lost part of an ear.
The medical conditions of the firefighter, Andre Johnson, and Stefin Gantt, the visitor, are slowing the investigative process, Capt. Kenneth Centorame, chief of detectives, said Thursday.
Johnson, 26, of North Fruit Street, was shot in the face, stomach and leg at his home around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. He remains in critical condition at St. Elizabeth Health Center.
Gantt, 20, of Garden Street Northwest, Warren, was taken by a companion to Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital after the shooting. A police officer later took the man’s right ear, packed in ice in a plastic container, to the Warren hospital to see if it could be reattached.
Centorame said Gantt, whose ear was likely bitten or cut off, has Youngstown police guard at the hospital. Reports show Gantt was also shot in his left forearm. Gunshot residue tests were done on Johnson and Gantt, who know each other, police said.
There’s a lot of work to be done before any charges are filed, Centorame said. He said detectives spoke to Johnson’s roommate, who wasn’t home at the time of the shooting, and the young man was very forthcoming.
Centorame said Gantt and another man, Ryan Ringold, also of Warren, went to Johnson’s house, with Ringold saying he stayed inside the car. Why they went to the house is part of the investigation.
A struggle took place inside Johnson’s basement, where furniture was overturned and blood found on the carpet. Vice Squad officers found roughly a pound of marijuana in a duffel bag, a digital scale with marijuana residue, drug pipe, a loaded .25-caliber pistol and $500 cash in a night stand, and smaller bags of marijuana.
Fire Chief John J. O’Neill Jr. said Thursday that everyone at the fire department is worried about Johnson. The firefighter, hired in June 2006, is assigned to Fire Station No. 12 on McGuffey Road.
“As long as he’s OK first, then we’ll worry about the other stuff,” O’Neill said, referring to the marijuana found inside the firefighter’s home. “I can’t help but hope the [marijuana] is not his. I’d like to believe that.”
Trumbull County court records, meanwhile, show Gantt was indicted in April on charges of felonious assault with a firearm specification, improperly discharging a firearm at or into a habitation and felonious assault on a peace officer with a firearm specification. A pretrial hearing had been set for Thursday with Judge John M. Stuard.
Vindicator files show that Gantt is accused of firing a shot in the direction of Warren Patrolman Jeff Miller when the officer was responding to a report of a man with a firearm in the 1500 block of North Park Avenue on Feb. 25.