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SWAT team called after neighbors fire shots
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A SWAT team was called Tuesday to search for two men suspected of being involved in a shootout on a South Side street.
Members of the Mahoning Valley Crisis Response Team were called to the 100 block of East Auburndale Avenue after neighbors who live across the street from each other exchanged gunfire.
No one was injured in the exchange, but two of the men believed to have been involved were thought to be hiding in two adjacent homes.
Supervisors on the scene requested the CRT to search the homes because they thought armed suspects might be inside, said Capt. Rod Foley.
Foley said that in one of the homes that was searched, more than a dozen people, several of them small children, were told to come outside and they did not immediately comply.
No one was found in the two homes searched by CRT members. Foley said there were 10 to 15 shell casings in the street and two vehicles and a home were damaged by gunfire.
The gunfire was a result of an argument the night before between people living in the two houses, Foley said.
Lt. Doug Bobovnyik of the detective bureau and a team of detectives were called out to investigate the shooting. Bobovnyik said one of the people involved in the shootout was taken to the police station for questioning and that person turned a gun over to police.
The gunfire was first reported about 4 p.m. by vice squad members who were on street patrol nearby.
Deputy Jeff Saluga of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office and a member of the CRT said owners of both homes gave consent for the searches.
It was almost 24 hours earlier that SWAT members were called out Monday to a home in the 1500 block of Kensington Avenue after a suspect in an East Liverpool bank robbery refused to come out of that home. He surrendered about two hours after police first arrived looking for him.
That man, Joseph Derrico, 28, was booked into the county jail on a warrant from municipal court. Charges have not yet been filed against him in the bank robbery.