Police seek suspects in several Thursday crimes

August 22, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.

VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — An evening of assault, robbery and home invasion, often involving firearms, has city police officers busy looking for suspects.

Gary Robins, 50, no address given, was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center and listed in critical condition Thursday after being shot on the city’s South Side. Police found Robins sitting in the front seat of a black Mazda on East Myrtle Avenue with gunshot wounds to the chest and leg.

A witness told police Robins was driving on Myrtle with a burgundy Buick Park Avenue chasing him. Robins backed into a driveway, and a man got out of the Buick and shot him,

Other witnesses left the area before police could finish asking questions.

Police also are looking for the man who robbed a 26-year-old South Side homeowner at gunpoint Thursday afternoon. Police say the man was in the basement of a home in the 700 block of Lake Drive painting when a man knocked on the door and inquired about renting the home. Once inside, the man pulled a gun, made the homeowner strip and took $280 and an electric scooter.

Police recovered a bottle of soda from which the thief had been drinking and placed the beverage container into evidence.

A 22-year-old woman and the father of her unborn child were in an altercation Thursday morning that could have turned deadly when the 25-year-old man pointed a gun at the woman and a relative.

According to police, the man and woman, both living in the 400 block of Ferndale Avenue, got into a dispute over the man’s cell phone at the corner of Earle Avenue and Hillman Street. Reports say the man became enraged and pulled a gun on the woman and her cousin before ramming her car with his car when she tried to leave. Reports say the man also shoved the woman.

The woman told police the man had just been released from prison, and she did not want to send him back to prison.

Jeremy Porter, 22, of Blue Rock, Ohio, is being held in Mahoning County jail with bond set at $10,000 on an aggravated-burglary charge after police say he broke into the home of his former girlfriend in an attempt to assault her current boyfriend.

Police say Porter went to the woman’s Tyrell Street home just before 7 p.m. Thursday and pounded on the door.

Police say the man then broke out a window and jumped into the apartment and attacked the boyfriend.

Police say a fight took place, and Porter ultimately fled the home.

Porter was pulled over a short distance from the home and taken to St. Elizabeth for treatment of cuts to his head and lip.

jgoodwin@vindy.com