Friday, January 22, 2010
STAFF REPORT
YOUNGSTOWN — Police are looking for two men who shot a West Side man in the head during an apparent home invasion.
According to police, two men knocked on the door of a home in the 100 block of North Portland Avenue just after 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. When Benjamin Wilkin, 20, a resident at the home, answered the door, witnesses heard one gunshot fired.
Witnesses told police that after the shot was fired, an older man yelled, “Where is the stuff; where is the money?”
Two men, one being a younger male with a dark complexion and an afro hairstyle and wearing a black and red bandanna around his head, came into the house.
The younger male went into a living-room area and began searching for items.
Witnesses hid in the house and called 911.
Officers arrived at the home and found Wilkin on the landing to the basement stairs near a side door bleeding profusely from a bullet wound to the head. He was conscious and gave police a detailed description of the shooter.
He was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center and listed in serious but stable condition.
According to police reports, officers found small pieces of suspected marijuana, small bags and a scale in the living-room area. Police also found a shell casing in the driveway of the home near the side door where Wilkin had been shot.
One witness later told police the shooters had been to the house before, and they make the residents of the house hold drugs and set up shop for drug transactions.