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Chaos reigned, victims testify of mass shooting near YSU
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Jones
YOUNGSTOWN
Three young women who were shot at a Feb. 6, 2011, house party on Indiana Avenue near Youngstown State University described a chaotic scene when gunfire erupted outside at 3:40 a.m.
Ebony Mickel, 22, who was shot in the foot; Lisette Encarnacion, 20, who was shot in her left side; and Jamie Ruffin, 21, who was shot in the hip, testified Wednesday in the jury trial of Columbus Jones Jr., 23, of Cambridge Avenue.
The women are among about 40 witnesses expected to testify in Jones’ trial before Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Jones is charged with the murder of Jamail Johnson, a 25-year-old YSU senior, and 11 counts of felonious assault, one for each of the 11 living victims of the mass shooting, all with firearm specifications, and with shooting into a habitation.
The three women, who took the witness stand on the second day of testimony, said people were screaming and falling down as they tried to escape through the front door while shots were being fired through the open back door.
After she heard an argument, Mickel said, “Next thing I know, I just hear gunshots. Everybody started running. People were falling.”
She added, “I fell, and I tried to get back up, and I just fell back down.” At that point, she testified she realized she’d been shot because she was unable to stand up. “My boots were overflowing with blood. ... I couldn’t get back up, so I just tried to slide across the floor into the other room.”
Mickel said her brother carried her out of the house before an ambulance took her to the hospital. She testified she suffered considerable nerve damage, but no broken bones and was on crutches for three months after the shooting.
All three women said they learned of the house party while they were at a Liberty nightclub earlier in the evening.
All reported hearing and seeing arguing and fighting at the house party before the shooting, but none could identify the people engaged in the scuffle or the person or persons who fired the shots, or specify how many shots were fired.
All reported the house was crowded, dark and noisy as a disc jockey played music, and people danced in a large first-floor room.
YSU President Cynthia Anderson was in the crowded courtroom, listening to the testimony.
The jury also heard Dr. Joseph Ohr, the forensic pathologist and deputy county coroner, who performed the autopsy on Johnson. He said Johnson’s death was a homicide by gunfire.
Dr. Ohr testified that Johnson was shot four times, once in the head, once in the left buttock, once in the left thigh and once in the lower left leg. All shots entered from the back and moved forward, and Johnson’s lower left leg was broken by one of the shots, he said.
The coroner’s report says the cause of death was the gunshot wound to the head, with the leg wounds as contributing factors.
“They were fatal within seconds,” Dr. Ohr said of Johnson’s injuries.
Some of the courtroom spectators shed tears as autopsy photos showing Johnson’s entrance and exit wounds and the bullets and fragments found within him were projected onto a screen during Dr. Ohr’s testimony.
Rebecca Doherty, chief of the criminal division of the county prosecutor’s office, had said in her opening statement Tuesday that Johnson was shot as he tried to usher party-goers to safety inside the house as shots were being fired.