Bus driver finds body of man on playground

STAFF REPORT

CHAMPION — Classes carried on at Champion Elementary School on Mahoning Avenue on Thursday despite a grisly find at 8:30 a.m. by a bus driver: the body of a 27-year-old Champion man on the playground at the back of the school.

The man had a single gunshot wound to the chest, and his body was taken to the morgue at Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital, where an autopsy will be done today.

Champion Police Chief Chris Redick said no foul play is suspected in the man’s death, though he declined to discuss specifically why.

Redick said is grateful to the bus driver who discovered the body so that no child had to see it.

Redick said he reassured parents who called the police station that there was no reason to be concerned for the safety of children in the building.

The district did have recess inside the building instead of on the playground Thursday.