After drive-by shooting, victims are hazy about "Smokey"

YOUNGSTOWN — Shots were fired at a car with a 26-year-old Youngstown man and his three young children on the city’s North Side on Monday.

No one was injured, police said.

Police said the man was in the passenger seat of his parked car on Saranac Avenue with his three children — ages 4, 2, and 11 months — in the back seat at 7:21 p.m. Monday when another man opened fire while driving by in a Dodge Neon.

The Youngstown man, and a 25-year-old woman, who is the mother of the three children, who was on the front porch of the Saranac Avenue home when the shooting occurred, identified the suspect as a man they know as “Smokey,” police said.

The man and his girlfriend said about 10 to 12 shots were quickly fired from a large black pistol at the vehicle, and officers were able to find four bullet holes, according to a police report.

The couple told police that “Smokey” is often at their house and wants to kill the male victim because he believes the victim was released from jail early for giving police information about the shooter.

Police said the male victim was “very uncooperative” and “it was clear [he] knows who ‘Smokey’ is and possibly his real name,” according to a police report, but wouldn’t give the name to officers.