5 suspects nabbed in killing of man, wounding of girl, 7

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Samson Snowden

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Asa Bush

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Alfonda Madison

By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.

jgoodwin@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The recent uptick in gun violence in the city has police, prosecutors and the courts scrambling to make arrests and get those suspected of the crimes before a judge.

Albert E. Whitted III, 23, of East Boston Avenue, and Joseph Valentine, no age or address given, are in Mahoning County jail with bond set at $1 million each. Both men appeared by video arraignment Monday before Judge Robert Douglas, Youngstown Municipal Court on a charge of murder.

They are charged in the death of Marlon Chatman, 28, who was shot twice in the leg at 360 W. Chalmers Ave. on the South Side at 3:41 p.m. Thursday. He later died of those wounds at St. Elizabeth Health Center.

Chatman was shot after he let two men into the house, and went upstairs with one, a witness told police.

The second man held a gun on the witness downstairs in the living room, a police report says.

Police also have in custody three people suspected in the shooting Saturday of a 7-year-old girl on the city’s North Side.

The child was shot in both legs while in the backseat of a relative’s car at a local convenience store. Witnesses told police a tan vehicle containing four males drove down Saranac Avenue with someone firing shots at the car containing the child.

John Marsh, an assistant city prosecutor, said Alfonda Madison, 23, and Asa Bush, 22, both of whom listed addresses on Dearborn Avenue, and Samson Snowden, 20, of Cedar Lane, are in the county jail on suspicion of felonious assault. Marsh said the three likely will be arraigned today.

Police also are investigating the exchange of gunfire between a 51-year-old North Side man and several men in a black SUV who began firing shots at him as he attempted to drop his 1-year-old son off at a house on Lauderdale Avenue late Friday night. No one was injured in the shooting.

The man told police someone in the SUV began shooting at the house before the vehicle sped away. He said he followed the SUV in an attempt to obtain a license- plate number but the occupants of the vehicle began shooting at him.

The man told officers he has a concealed-carry permit and did return gunfire when the men in the SUV began shooting at him.

Another North Side man told police he also had a confrontation with several men driving a black SUV less than 24 hours before the Lauderdale Avenue shooting.

A 25-year-old Irma Avenue man told police he was walking his dog when the SUV pulled alongside him, and he heard several shots.

The man was struck on the right side of the head and taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center in Boardman. He told police he does not know who shot him.

Police are looking for a 24-year-old East Side man accused of abducting his live-in girl friend and threatening the 30-year-old woman with a gun. The woman told police she argued with the man Saturday, but the man broke her cell phone, choked her and forced her into his SUV while holding a gun to her face.

The woman told police the man drove her to the far East Side at gunpoint then fired a shot near her ear before forcing her out of the vehicle.

Officers found the man’s car parked near the woman’s home but did not find the man inside. Police said the suspect has an outstanding warrant from Campbell and is listed as having violent tendencies.

Some city residents who were victims of gun play were not interested in police help, however.

Officers were called to a home in the 900 block of East Florida Avenue on the South Side after someone had driven by and fired multiple shots into the home late Friday night.

Police began to investigate the shooting, finding about 13 holes in the walls of the home, but the six juveniles and two adults inside the homes locked the doors and told officers they could not enter the home without a search warrant. Reports say no one was injured in the shooting.