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Chief: Drug violence spilling into the open
City has seen 8 homicides since Oct. 25
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Beefs in the drug world are common, and when violence is used, it generally goes unreported and is mostly unknown.
Since Oct. 25, however, that violence has spilled into public view with eight homicides, almost all of which police believe are drug related.
Police Chief Robin Lees said it is not clear if the city’s latest homicide, in which Christopher Jackson, 21, of Miller Street in Warren, was found shot and killed about 2 a.m. Sunday on the East Side, is related to drugs. But he said the others are.
While they are tied to the drug trade in general, Lees said investigators for the most part do not think they are related to each other.
Lees said there are leads in several of those cases, and in some, such as a triple homicide Nov. 7 at Gibson Street and Pasadena Avenue in which a 3-month-old baby was killed, there is physical evidence that detectives sent away to be tested. They are waiting for those results to come back.
In the drug world, almost everything revolves around money, Lees said, and often disputes are settled with violence. An example is a person who is shot yet tells investigators nothing, not even where they were shot. Other crimes, especially one dealer robbing another dealer, are not reported at all.
Lees said the lack of other influences, such as a stable family, lack of church involvement or education leads to a set of people who gravitate toward a criminal lifestyle. One of their traits is the lack of a way to solve a problem without violence.
So if someone has a dispute over a quantity of drugs or drug money, Lees said, instead of trying to straighten it out, they just start shooting.
When asked how big the city’s drug trade might be because of the number of recent, unrelated drug shootings, Lees said he believes Youngstown’s drug trade is the same as any other city of comparable size.
In Sunday’s homicide, although it might not have been drug related, both Jackson and another Warren man who was with him and wounded, Carl Davis, 22, are familiar to police in Trumbull County.
Jackson was free on $5,000 bond after being arrested about 2 a.m. Oct. 28 on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Reports said he was pulled over at North Park Avenue and Scott Street for driving without a license-plate light. Police found a loaded .40-caliber handgun in the car, reports said.
In 2014, Davis was charged by Warren police with felonious assault, but in 2015 he pleaded guilty in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to a reduced charge of attempted felonious assault and was sentenced to five years’ probation. Police said he refused to speak to investigators in Sunday’s shooting.
As for what police can do, Lees said he wants his patrol division to continue being aggressive and taking guns off the street when they can.
“We just want the officers out there to continue what they’re doing,” Lees said.
According to municipal court records, 74 felony gun cases have been filed in municipal court so far this year. Last year, there were 131 felony gun cases in municipal court, and the year before there were 116.
Lees also said that vice squad investigations and search warrants will now be more focused on people who may be responsible for some of the recent violence.
So far for 2018, the city has recorded 21 homicides. In 2017, Youngstown had 28 homicides.