Thursday, August 20, 2009
YOUNGSTOWN — Police are investigating a series of separate shootings in a 12-hour period that left one woman critically wounded and a neighborhood shaken.
Latoya Stephenson, 34, of Victor Avenue was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center just after 1 a.m. Wednesday with what police call a severe gunshot wound to the lower stomach area. She was taken to surgery and listed as critical as of Wednesday afternoon.
According to police, Stephenson was shot in a recreational area on Cedar Lane. A man told police he and Stephenson earlier in the day saw a confrontation between a Dogwood Lane woman and a man driving a red car. The driver of the car brandished a firearm before leaving the area with a female.
The man with Stephenson told police he and Stephenson went to a nearby recreational area where they saw the man in the red car drive by the area again, with three other men in the car. The man said gunfire erupted a short time later from a nearby wooded area with Stephenson being struck in the stomach.
The gunfire shot also struck six homes on Cedar Lane, Victor Avenue and Willow Court. No one inside the homes was injured.
Alicia Robinson, 21, of Gluck Street was shot in the leg in a separate incident during a confrontation with a man she told police is her boyfriend.
According to police, Robinson went to the 29-year-old man’s Broadway Avenue home just after midnight Wednesday morning to confront him about another woman. She told officers she knocked on the door but received no answer so broke a window to the home. The man, she said, fired several shots at her, hitting her in the thigh.
Robinson was treated at Northside Medical Center.
William Hayes, 36, of Erie Street told police he was shot in the buttocks while walking in the area of Hilton Avenue and South Avenue just before 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Hayes told police he was walking with a friend when he heard a pop then felt pain. He was able to walk home before being taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center by ambulance.
A 27-year-old South Side woman called police just after 2 a.m. Wednesday when bullets hit her Sherwood Avenue home. The woman told police she heard about five gunshots then hid in a closet with her 9-year-old daughter.
Police found broken glass on a front screen door to the house.
At about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday an 18-year-old East Marion Avenue man told police someone fired a series of shots at him from a moving vehicle. The man told police a black Cavalier had been circling his home for several minutes before someone fired seven shots in his direction. The man was not hit by any of the shots.
No arrests have been made in any of the shootings.
jgoodwin@vindy.com