Warren homeowner says teen fatal shooting followed confrontation at house

WARREN

Trumbull County prosecutors may again have to ponder a case dealing with the rights of a homeowner to protect himself when faced with a threat to his safety.

This morning, a Warren police report regarding the noontime Wednesday shooting death of Kyran Adkins, 17, of Milton Street Southeast, reveals that the homeowner who shot Adkins to death said he fired at Adkins after a confrontation outside of the homeowner’s house.

The 32-year-old Brier Street man said he was inside his house and heard banging outside of the back of his house.

He heard the noise several times before grabbng his gun and going to the door of his house.

When the man “opened the door, a male wearing a red jacket with a gray hood had a gun in his hand,” the homeowner said.

“Another subject was behind the house and did not get a good look at him,” but the homeowner said he thought the second male was wearing a navy-blue jacket, the police report says.

The homeowner “said that he was startled once he seen the gun and fired his gun” and that both males ran toward Wick Street to the south.

Adkins continued about a block south, where he collapsed in the back yard of a house on Wick Street Southeast. He was pronounced dead later at ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital.

The second male, who a witness said had his hooded sweatshirt pulled up around his face, continued to run into the woods and had not been located.

Police have initially classified the case an aggravated burglary.

The case has similarities to two other cases involving homeowners defending themselves from intruders in the Warren-Niles area.

In the most recent case, four burglars were convicted in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court for their role in a July 12, 2013, burglary at a house on Niles Cortland Road in Niles in which the homeowner fired a gun through his front door, killing a fifth burglar as he tried to pry open the front door with a tire iron.

The homeowner, who said he awoke to the sound of burglars trying to get into the house, was cleared of any wrongdoing in the case.

The other involved a 52-year-old man who fired a gun at two Warren youths who were vandalizing a campaign sign in front of his Dover Street, Warren Township house, in October 2008.

In that case, the homeowner was eventually convicted of a felony of aggravated assault and placed on five years probation and ordered to pay restitution to the families of the boys, one of whom was shot in the arm during the incident.