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Cops investigate two slayings in two days
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police are looking for suspects in a pair of homicides a little more than 24 hours apart, and for a double shooting in between.
About 5 a.m. Monday, the body of a man was found on a sidewalk in the 2500 block of Guadalupe Avenue on the North Side. The man had been shot, and police are treating his death as a homicide.
A news release from the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as 20-year-old Antwon Lee Martinez of Youngstown. An autopsy is set for today. The release said Martinez appears to have died from multiple gunshot wounds.
Chief of Detectives Brad Blackburn said Martinez may have been lying on the sidewalk for some time. He said there was a report of gunfire in the area about 8:30 or 9 p.m. Sunday but no one saw him until Monday morning. Blackburn said the street is dark and the man was dressed in all dark clothing.
“It’s conceivable no one would see him,” Blackburn said.
About 4 a.m. Sunday, police responded to gunfire sensor calls at LaBelle and Southern Boulevard on the South Side and found a Cleveland man, 47-year-old Bryant K. Abercrombie, dead of a gunshot wound to the head.
The killings bring the city’s homicide count in 2014 to 16. In 2013, Youngstown had 20 homicides.
Detective Sgt. Darryl Martin, lead investigator on the Abercrombie case, said Abercrombie was part of a group from Cleveland who came to the Ridaz Block motorcycle club at East Midlothian and Southern boulevards for a party.
Martin said the club had advertised for an event over the weekend and groups from across Northeast Ohio, including Warren, Toledo and Cleveland, were on hand.
Abercrombie and his group got into a fight with another group at the pool table inside and were asked to leave, Martin said. When Abercrombie stepped outside, gunfire broke out, he said.
“We don’t know what prompted it,” Martin said of the gunfire. A number of people were firing guns, he said.
Reports said a large crowd had gathered and was uncooperative with officers and threw things at them. Martin said he has received some cooperation, but he needs more people to come forward.
“Somebody saw what happened,” Martin said. Anyone who has any information can call him at 330-742-8250.
Sunday afternoon, two men were wounded in a home on the South Side.
Eddie Robertson Jr., 21, of Hawn Street, and Carlos Herring, 27, of Maplewood Avenue, Struthers, are being treated at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital after they were wounded at a home in the 2600 block of McFarland Avenue in the Idora neighborhood about 3:35 p.m. Sunday.
Reports said that when police arrived, Robertson had a wound to his stomach and Herring had a wound to the chest.
Police searched the home and found no victims or suspects but did find a door that was padlocked from the outside. Reports said officers broke the door down in case there may have been a suspect or another victim inside.
Inside the room, police found a handgun, a Heckler and Koch SL81 assault rifle, three large bags filled with a leafy substance suspected to be marijuana and another bag that had suspected crack cocaine inside, reports said.
The assault rifle had been listed as stolen in 2012 by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, reports said.
Witnesses told police that after shots were fired, two men — one holding a shotgun and the other carrying a handgun — ran away. Police searched the area but could not find them.
Blackburn said both victims are expected to recover from their injuries.