Shooting, robberies, stabbing probed
An arrest has been made in the city’s latest shooting.
YOUNGSTOWN — There was little cheer during the Christmas weekend for those involved in a series of crimes, including a shooting, armed robberies and a stabbing.
Police say the city’s most-recent shooting victim — a man was shot two days after Christmas — is in serious condition at St. Elizabeth Health Center but is expected to survive. Police also have made an arrest in the case.
Walter Wright, 28, of Verona Avenue, is charged with felonious assault in the shooting and scheduled to be arraigned today in Youngstown Municipal Court. He is accused of shooting Brian Williams, 28, of West Boston Avenue, just before 5 a.m. Sunday.
The shooting occurred at Jitso’s Bar on McGuffey Road. An unidentified male dropped off Williams at St. Elizabeth Health Center. The unidentified person who took Williams to the hospital left before police arrived.
Two city men are in the Mahoning County jail and expected to be arraigned today in municipal court in the armed robbery of a city pizzeria two days after Christmas. Charges are pending against a 44-year-old Plazaview Court man and a 41-year-old Orange Street man.
According to police, one of the men went into the Belleria Pizzeria on Wick Avenue just before 7:30 p.m. Sunday, grabbed an employee over the counter and pointed a handgun at the woman. The man ordered the employee to open the cash register and not to press any alarm buttons.
The man ran out of the store when the employee was unable to open the cash register.
Police, after an investigation and witness statements, arrested the two men on misdemeanor outstanding warrants and suspicion of robbery.
Christmas Day was no holiday for those looking to commit crime. One man was stabbed on the East Side, and several people were robbed at gunpoint in the downtown area.
According to police, a 33-year-old Poland man was walking in an alley near the 100 block of Commerce Street with a female friend when two gunmen robbed them of $42.
Police came into contact with two more people who were robbed of $30 between Phelps and Hazel streets by two men fitting the same description, but those victims did not wish to file a police report.
Police have not made an arrest in either crime.
A 46-year-old Ayers Street man was treated at St. Elizabeth Health Center for multiple stabs wounds suffered during an altercation Christmas Day.
According to police, the man was involved in an altercation with another man in the 1500 block of Shehy Street on the East Side.
The Ayers street man pulled out a wooden board during the fight, and the other man pulled out a knife and stabbed him five times.
The man’s injuries are not life-threatening.
No arrest has been made.
Police are looking for two men who forced their way into a North Osborne Avenue home and held knives to the head of a 13-year-old boy Saturday.
According to police, the boy was taking out the garbage just after 2:30 p.m. when a man grabbed his arm, put a knife to his head and forced his way into the West Side home.
Another man came in directly behind the knife-wielding man.
Reports say one of the men said, “This is the wrong house,” upon seeing an 11-year-old girl came down from the second floor of the house.
The children’s mother was at work at the time. Both men ran off before police arrived.
No arrest has been made.
jgoodwin@vindy.com