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3 injured in Warren fight involving bats, guns
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Three people were injured, one of them seriously enough to require transport to Cleveland, when a dispute over drug money turned violent Sunday afternoon on Brier Street Southeast, police said.
The fight involved gunshots and baseball bats, but police were not saying whether the men were injured by the bats, guns or both.
Warren police were not releasing the names of the injured men but said one of the three was taken by helicopter from a local hospital to a Cleveland hospital.
The men were taken to Trumbull Memorial Hospital and St. Joseph Health Center, according to a press release from detectives Wayne Mackey and Michael Currington, who investigated the incident along with a forensic officer.
No suspects had been arrested as of Sunday night, the detectives said.
The incident occurred at 3:05 p.m. at 2145 Brier St. after individuals arrived at the house to collect money from a woman who owed for drugs, police said.
The confrontation started inside the house but continued into the yard, police said.
The house involved is near the intersection of Brier Street and state Route 169 near the southeastern end of town. Nearby are the Willard K-8 school and the Bolindale area of Howland Township.
Residents of a house just west of 2145 Brier St. said they had nothing to say. A man who came out of 2145 Brier St. also didn’t want to talk, he said.
Brier Southeast is the street on which a baseball-bat assault took place July 21, 2010, that caused a serious brain injury to 15-year-old Verdarell Lowery, who was in critical condition at Akron Children’s Hospital afterward.
That assault took place during a large fight at the corner of Brier Street and Duke Avenue Southeast, about a block west of Sunday’s fight. Police said last summer’s fight was part of an ongoing feud.
Lowery’s assault was captured on video from a cellphone and was later broadcast on local television.
Johntee Daniel, 17, of Warren, was sentenced to two years in the custody of the Ohio Department of Youth Services for delivering the blow to Lowery.
A second youth was convicted of misdemeanor assault in the case for handing the baseball bat to Daniel.