Man, woman, face charges after South Side shooting

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Jody Hunter, 24, of Youngstown is scheduled to be arraigned today on charges stemming from a gunfight on the city’s South Side on Monday afternoon.

Hunter faces charges of improper discharge of a firearm into a habitation, being a felon in possession of a firearm, tampering with evidence, failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer, improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle, child endangering and resisting arrest.

Police called to Cameron Avenue about 5:15 p.m. heard several gunshots and left that call to find the source of the gunfire.

Reports said when officers stopped at East Dewey and Gibson avenues, they could see puffs of smoke from gunfire and heard several gunshots. It appeared two groups of people were firing at each other in front of a home in the 600 block of East Dewey Avenue.

There was a crowd of 15 to 20 people watching, and several children were playing outside at the time, reports said.

An SUV then drove away from the home, and an officer followed. On East Indianola Avenue, a car tried to stop police cars from following the SUV, and the driver tossed a gun out of the window, reports said.

The SUV stopped in the 300 block of East Florida Avenue, and the driver, Hunter, got out of the SUV and was screaming for help and screaming he was being beaten, reports said.

Hunter also was screaming “police brutality” and would not allow officers to handcuff him, reports said.

Police later found a Glock semiautomatic handgun at the spot where a gun was thrown in the street, reports said.

Hunter is in Mahoning County jail.

After the shooting, officers served a search warrant at the Dewey Avenue home where the shooting was taking place.

Inside, they found two bags of suspected marijuana, a spent bullet, several rounds of ammunition and a magazine, two suspected marijuana plants, three lamps that are used to help grow marijuana, an electronic scale and more than $1,200 in cash.

Taken into custody there was Tiffany S. Hanoman, 25, on charges of drug abuse, drug paraphernalia and illegal manufacture of drugs or cultivation of marijuana. She later was released from the jail on summons, according to records at the jail.

Lt. Gerard Slattery, head of the vice squad, said a search warrant was obtained because when detectives went to the home to talk to witnesses they could smell a strong odor of raw marijuana. Slattery said there has never been a mention of the home being a major growing operation for the drug before.