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Shooting death interrupts peaceful neighborhood
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A mother of five says she had just brought her kids in from playing in back of her Fairview Gardens apartment building Saturday night when gunfire erupted.
Police say about 80 shots were fired in the 10:50 p.m. incident. Afterward, Heaven Lynn Townsend, 21, of Youngstown lay dead a short distance from where the children were playing.
“Me and my daughter were washing dishes, and we heard gunfire, and we immediately dropped to the ground,” Naomi Faison said.
She saw two males who Faison believed were with Townsend “running across a field,” she said. She thinks they were with Townsend because of something she heard one of them say.
“My kids were outside enjoying the last weekend before school,” Faison said, lamenting that such a peaceful scene in a normally peaceful neighborhood filled with lots of open spaces would take such a deadly turn.
“We’re trying to motivate the kids to stay in school,” she said. “It’s emotional. It’s real crazy,” she said. “I just pray to God that nothing like this happens again. Too many kids around here.”
Faison said that when the shooting stopped, “we looked out, and there was a body just laying in the middle of the ground.”
“We are like, ‘Are you serious?’ This is too close to home. Anybody else could have gotten hurt,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what to do if any of my kids were caught in that.
“Everybody knows everybody around here and to find out she wasn’t from here. Nobody knew the girl or why she was here,” she said.
At a Tuesday news conference, Warren Police Chief Eric Merkel asked for witnesses to the shooting to come forward, saying, “I believe dozens of witnesses were out there” when Townsend was shot, but police have gotten little information.
Faison, however, believes the timing was such that parents like her had called their children to come in for the night just before the shooting. She doesn’t believe there were witnesses outside at the time.
There were two cars left behind after the shooting stopped, however, Faison said. Police have not commented on any of the evidence in the case, but Faison said the car Townsend arrived in was in a nearby parking lot, and a Dodge Charger mentioned in police radio communications was found abandoned not far from the shooting scene.
Police used dogs to look for a suspect or suspects but apparently were unsuccessful. Police towed two vehicles from the scene.