2 injured in afternoon shooting in Warren

Staff report

WARREN

Two people suffered wounds in gunfire that began on Brier Street Southeast and spread to the adjacent Burton Street Southeast on Tuesday afternoon.

Both victims were taken to a Warren hospital.

Police said the shootings produced three crime scenes: homes in the 2200 block of Brier and 2300 block of Burton, as well as Paige Avenue Northeast, where a crash resulted from a police chase involving a “suspect vehicle” involved in the shooting.

A witness on Burton Street said she heard about five shots at first, then a pause for several minutes, then about 10 more shots. The Trumbull County 911 center indicated there was a gap of about four minutes between the two sets of shots.

In a 3:24 p.m. 911 call, a Warren officer could be heard talking to a dispatcher, telling her he just heard some gunshots, then more could be heard over his police radio.

Radio calls from the 911 center indicated two silver cars were fleeing from the Brier and Burton area after the shooting. Police recovered two guns that had been thrown from the fleeing vehicle, police said.

The 3:20 p.m. timing was bad for students at the Willard K-8 school a few blocks away in one direction and Warren John F. Kennedy High School a few blocks away in another direction.

School resource officers, who are city police officers, went into action at Willard, providing a perimeter to keep the building safe, schools Superintendent Steve Chiaro said.

Regular school-day students were dismissed at 4:15 p.m., which was only about 10 minutes later than normal, Chiaro said.

The building is “always secure and in locked status,” and school resource officers determined when it was safe for bus dismissal and walkers to leave, he said.

A similar sentiment was expressed by a parent at JFK, where the junior-varsity football team was about to begin practice near the time the shootings began.

The team was kept in the building a little later, but they still practiced and finished up about a half-hour later than normal, the woman said as she waited for her son to come out of the building. The varsity team was on the field practicing at the time, about 5:30 p.m.