43
Man shot in car dies later of wounds
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A man who was shot in his car Tuesday morning and died hours later is the city’s 13th homicide of the year.
The victim, whom police did not want to name until his family is notified, was found shot about 12:40 a.m. in a car on Chicago Avenue on the South Side by officers who were answering a gunfire sensor call.
Chief of Detectives Capt. Brad Blackburn said investigators think the man was shot while he was inside the car, and that the victim’s car was on Chicago when he was shot and not driven there from someplace else.
The victim was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital where he died about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Blackburn said.
Officers early Tuesday and late Monday relied on gunfire sensors to answer the call on Chicago, and also one on East Avondale Avenue, where a house was shot up. Police Chief Robin Lees said the department relies heavily on the sensors for their accuracy and because they help paint a chronological picture of a crime because they record the time accurately.
Lees said geographically speaking, the sensors are also more accurate. He said often if someone calls 911 to report gunfire they are a distance away from the shots and it’s hard for them to give an accurate picture of where the gunfire is coming from, which, in turn, makes it harder for officers to locate the source.
“When they’re reporting the gunfire, the gunfire is frequently not where they are,” Lees said.
Police are also awaiting coroner’s results on two other cases that could be homicides after the body of a woman was found in July in a freezer in Campbell and the body of another woman was found Aug. 9 in the trunk of her boyfriend’s car in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Suspects in both cases are in custody on charges related to those cases.
In 2016, the city had 18 homicides. At this point in the year in 2016, there were 12 homicides in Youngstown.