Suspect in funeral shooting found

June 14, 2016 at 12:05a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

A man facing a weapons charge involving a shooting at a funeral service earlier this year is in the Mahoning County jail on $15,000 bond.

Vernon Johnson, 22, was arraigned Monday before Judge Elizabeth Kobly on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm and two probation violations.

Johnson has been sought since a warrant was issued for his arrest in April after a shooting at a funeral service at a Brownlee Woods church. No one was injured.

He was found about 1:30 p.m. Friday at a home in the 3400 block of Neilson Avenue and taken into custody without incident.

Johnson is accused of having a weapon at a March 31 funeral for homicide victim Marquise Shelton at the New Vision New Day Church at Everett and Irma avenues in the Brownlee Woods area of the South Side.

Shooting at the services occurred when two people got into an argument inside and one person went outside to retrieve a gun and began firing. The church was not hit by gunfire, but several cars were damaged.

Police also are searching for the man they say is a suspect in the death of Shelton, Jermail D. Holloway, 23, who faces a charge of discharging a firearm into a habitation. Shelton, also 23, was shot and killed March 20 inside his Idora Avenue home.

Police said Shelton was shot after he and Holloway argued over the results of a video game. Holloway has been on the run since Shelton’s death, police said.

Johnson had faced a weapons charge in June 2015, when he was accused of shooting himself in the hand in Boardman, then falsely reporting a robbery to cover up the crime.

Court records show he pleaded no contest in that case to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon and was sentenced to time served in the county jail, where he served 30 days while awaiting the outcome of his case.

Court records also show he had to forfeit the gun he had at the time to the township police department.