Four people were shot in Youngstown in a 48-hour period


By DAVID SKOLNICK

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

It was a particularly violent 48 hours in Youngstown with four people shot – including one fatally – in three separate incidents on the city’s South Side.

Michael J. Pete, 30, of East Chalmers Avenue, was fatally shot at a house party on East Evergreen Avenue about 12:45 a.m. Sunday, said Detective Sgt. John Perdue.

Police still were investigating the shooting as of Monday night in which they suspect Jermaine Bunn, 38, who last listed address was Columbus, who was shot in the face at the same party, fatally shot Pete.

Pete was shot several times in the chest.

“There was a lot of lead thrown up there,” Perdue said. “Luckily, only one person was killed and one other hit.”

There were about 30 people at the party, he said, several of them with conflicting stories.

“We’re still piecing it together,” Perdue said. We don’t know what triggered” the shooting.

“Clearly, there were underlying issues between the two people,” said police Chief Robin Lees. “It was ‘High Noon’ on the front porch. Nobody wanted to intervene or talk these people out of it.”

Bunn, of Youngstown, was in stable condition late Monday at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

Two other people were shot Saturday in separate incidents.

“All of these shootings seem to be the result of personal conflicts between the victim and shooter,” Lees said. “It’s unfortunate they don’t have other ways to resolve these issues other than deadly force. ... We try to press upon people there are other ways to resolve issues. The violence has to stop. Apparently that message didn’t come across to these people.”

A 20-year-old Midlothian Boulevard man said he was driving on East Lucius Avenue toward Southern Boulevard at 1:45 p.m. Saturday when a bullet grazed his head, according to a police report.

His car had two bullet holes to its front windshield and one on the driver’s side window.

Police went to ValleyCare Northside Medical Center, where the man was treated for the minor injury, to question why he didn’t call them.

The victim said he was “afraid” to call police, according to a report.

Also, a 19-year-old Youngstown man is in stable condition after being shot in the lower back inside a car outside a Gibson Street club.

Police said the Thornton Avenue man was a passenger in a BMW about 6 a.m. Saturday outside the Afro Dogs club when someone shot at the vehicle.

The man told police he saw a male, who he had problems with at the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center, near the vehicle holding a gun at the time of the shooting.

The driver wasn’t shot.

No arrest had been made in either shooting as of Monday.

Meanwhile, a bullet fired about 1 a.m. Monday on West Ravenwood Avenue struck two houses on that street.

A resident on the 300 block said she was standing by her front door turning off her porch light when she heard gunfire from the street, according to a police report.

The bullet hit a picture hanging in her living room, continued through a wall and into a chimney in a house next door, the report states.

No one was injured.