Police probe homicide on East Side

Campbell police found the body while transporting the victim’s mother.

YOUNGSTOWN — Police and the Mahoning County coroner’s office are investigating as a homicide the death of a 27-year-old South Pearl Street man whose body was found early Sunday morning at Center and Hickory streets on Youngstown’s East Side.

The victim, Ivan Cruz, was discovered lying on his back and not breathing or moving about 6 a.m. by Campbell police, who were transporting the victim’s mother, Maria Cruz, in a cruiser to a residence. Ambulance personnel told police the victim was deceased.

Police found four spent shell casings and two spent bullets near the victim, whose body was found two blocks from the Youngstown-Campbell city line, but police reports do not describe the victim’s injuries. A green four-door Cadillac that was parked in the street near the victim was towed from the scene for examination by detectives.

A man, who resides on Gladstone Street, told police he heard two gunshots, went to a window of his residence, heard four more shots and a female voice saying, “Oh, my God, he’s dead,” then saw a large car speed up Center Street and go west on Gladstone.

Police asked two men and two women, who were yelling and screaming, to step away from the crime scene so they could preserve it. One of them, a cousin of the victim, had to be pulled away from the body because he shook the victim and yelled for him to wake up, police said.

A Campbell police dispatcher said he did not know why that department’s officers were transporting the victim’s mother in a cruiser.