Detroit man in drug case dies in Warren shootout

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — A Detroit man accused of drug trafficking on West Market Street in September was killed Tuesday night in a gunbattle.

The shootout occurred in the backyard of a house where just last week a confrontation involving men alleged to be drug dealers took place.

Warren police identified the dead man as Michael A. Travis, 30. His body was found in the snow at about 10:20 p.m. at the back of a house divided into several apartments at 355 Washington St. N.E. Police had made no arrests as of Wednesday afternoon.

Travis’ death is the first Warren homicide of 2010.

The house is the same place Eric Collins, 31, who lives there, confronted three men last Wednesday because he believed they were there to sell drugs. One of those men threatened Collins and later pulled out a shotgun, pointed it and fired just to the side of Collins. Carl D. Washington, 21, of Warren was arrested by police later, charged with felonious assault and placed in the Trumbull County Jail.

Police have released few details of the Tuesday killing, but a police report says a second man, also from Detroit and also arrested in the Sept. 15 West Market Street drug raid, was also shot about that same time.

Christopher D. Davis, 39, told police he drove himself to Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital after being shot on North Park Avenue at about 10:40 p.m. North Park Avenue is about three blocks west of the location of the fatal shooting.

Davis, who suffered multiple gunshot wounds, told police he thinks he was being robbed by unidentified people when the shooting took place but declined to give police any other information.

Travis and Davis were charged with aggravated drug trafficking in the raid on the West Market Street house. They were released from jail on bond, and their cases were bound over to a Trumbull County grand jury.

Sgt. Jeff Cole of the Warren Police Department said police believe Davis and Travis were both shot in the same incident. He doesn’t know if there were other people involved, and he doesn’t know whether the shooting involved anyone at 355 Washington or whether it is drug-related.

Cole said the shooting doesn’t appear to have anything to do with Collins.

A neighbor near the home where the shooting took place, Bruce Ramey, told The Vindicator that neighbors saw three men shooting at one another in the rear corner of the house near stairs leading to an upstairs apartment.

One of the three men ran from the scene on foot, and a vehicle similar to the one Davis was driving, a silver Mercury Marquis, left the scene after having a window damaged by gunfire, Ramey said.

Ramey showed a Vindicator reporter bullet holes in the house to the west of 355 Washington St. that Ramey’s daughter owns and he manages.

There were also bullet holes in the garage behind his daughter’s house. The renter living in the house was home at the time but not hit by gunfire, said Ramey, who heard the gunfire himself.

“You could just hear ‘bang, bang, bang’ and then ‘pow, pow, pow’ from the shotgun, then the car driving away. It was like the Wild West,” Ramey said.

Collins was at work at the time of the shooting but came home just afterward and told neighbors he will be moving out, Ramey said.

“My tenant was calling me telling me there was a dead body on the ground,” said Ramey, who has been reporting problems with prostitution and drug dealing in the neighborhood for years and said he feels the city hasn’t done much about it.

“You’ve got to stop the little weeds because this is what it leads to,” he said.

In an interview last week, Collins said there have been problems with other tenants in the house where he lives, especially drug dealing.

“There should not be one more dime spent [in Warren] until our police and fire is back up to full strength,” Ramey said. “People need to feel safe and secure.”

Police department staffing has dropped from 81 officers to 59 in the past year, and fire department staffing has dropped from 71 to 52 since one year ago as Warren addresses its financial problems.

runyan@vindy.com