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Police investigate driver’s death
By Ed Runyan
YOUNGSTOWN
Police are investigating a homicide that occurred on St. Louis Avenue at 2:38 p.m. Friday.
The male driver was hit by gunfire, then his car crashed into a porch ramp and a tree in a front yard at 118 St. Louis.
Capt. Mark Milstead said police still were trying to identify the man Friday evening and didn’t have a name or age to release.
The black car, traveling east, went off the left side of St. Louis halfway between Hillman Street and Oak Hill Avenue, traveled about 200 feet through high grass, then crashed through tree branches before passing through a metal railing, wooden porch ramp and coming to rest against a tree.
Parts of the automobile were still on the ground near the porch and tree several hours later.
Milstead said the man had been hit by at least one gunshot.
A nearby resident said gunshots could be heard coming from two cars traveling east down St. Louis close to Hillman. The resident said both cars traveled down St. Louis just after the shots were fired.
One of the two cars was apparently the one that left the road and hit the porch ramp and tree, the resident said.
“I heard the shooting. I know two cars came down through there,” the resident said. “I was in the house, and I saw the cars go down there. On the South Side, you hear shootings from time to time.”
The resident said it wasn’t clear whether anyone lived in the house that was damaged. No one appeared to be home Friday evening.
The death marks the fifth homicide of the year in Youngstown. The fourth one was the shooting death of De’Vail Fleeton, 16, a Chaney High School student gunned down on the East Side on March 26.
Witnesses said five males wearing black, hooded sweat shirts and red ball caps chased Fleeton from the Plaza View Apartments across Stewart Avenue and McGuffey Road, firing at him as he ran. After the victim fell, the suspects ran back into Plaza View.